A frantic penultimate round at Donington Park has completely turned the 2026 British GT title picture on its head as Rob Collard and Hugo Cook emerged victorious. The Barwell Lamborghini pair obliterated the field from lap one to cross the line 15.595s ahead of Kevin Tse and series debutant Chris Lulham, with their 2 Seas Mercedes team-mates Charles Dawson and Aaron Walker completing the podium.
The two-hour race just couldn’t have gone any better for the Barwell duo. They headed to Leicestershire with a 20.5-point deficit to erstwhile leaders Morgan Tillbrook and Ben Barnicoat, but a retirement for the Optimum McLaren pair has given a 17-point advantage to the Barwell duo with 37.5 available at the Brands Hatch finale.
Cook reckons a win on Sunday was all-but certain when rain briefly fell around 45 minutes before lights out. It caused a wet start – albeit with parts of the track still dry – and his two-time champion co-driver excels in such conditions, helped by 19 years in the BTCC.
“When the rain came down, I just knew,” said Cook, now a three-time British GT race winner. “This was perfect for Rob. He’s got so much experience in those conditions, experience with front row starts. I just knew it, he does it all the time!”
That he did as Collard jumped shock polesitter Jonathon Beeson (Century BMW), while Marc Warren (Optimum McLaren) overtook Alex Martin (Barwell Lamborghini) for third in quite a scrappy opening lap. It’s one which also saw Tillbrook suffer a poor start from fifth as he respectively dropped behind Tse and Dawson into seventh before quite a static 20 minutes that followed.
It was partly dictated by Collard just streaking five seconds into the lead, while drivers behind largely sat tight and waited for the crossover point onto slicks. Yet with British GT plans like that can often go out of the window, particularly when it comes to encountering traffic which needs to be lapped.
A wet start played into Collard’s hands perfectly
Photo by: JEP
Beeson felt that the most, as the Century driver was struggling to get by the Rodin Ferrari of Cameron Campbell which had dropped a lap back due to an earlier spin. The BMW just couldn’t overtake, allowing Warren to close in and grab second with a daring double pass on the pair through Starkey’s Bridge during the 25th minute.
Seconds later, however, Campbell remained in the picture as fourth-placed Martin got onto his tail and tried to lap down the outside. But this caused the Lamborghini to dip its wheels onto the grass, resulting in a collision between the Huracan and the Ferrari with both spinning into the Coppice gravel trap – though without much damage.
“There was space, then he moved across,” claimed Martin, who was deemed “predominately responsible” with a 10s penalty. “I’m sure he was trying to be polite to the other guys, but he was very impolite to me! It was self-penalising, so why give me another 10 seconds?”
Martin’s co-driver Jarrod Waberski, however, held a differing view: “It’s a greasy track, lapped cars with faster cars approaching. If I’m honest, I think a 10-second penalty is probably deserved. We picked the wrong line and ended up hitting the other car off the track.”
So that dropped the #78 Lamborghini out of the picture, just as the point for slicks had arrived after 30 minutes of the contest. Amongst the frontrunners, the now fifth-placed Dawson was first to pit and this extra lap on the slicks ultimately rewarded the reigning champion.
It’s because the #15 Mercedes jumped up to second, splitting Collard and Warren, with approximately 1.5s now separating the top three. But any promise of a three-way fight quickly died as Collard again streaked clear, while Warren regained second down the inside of Redgate after 40 minutes.
Reigning champion Dawson, now in GT World Challenge, returned for a one-off outing
Photo by: JEP
The Optimum driver subsequently did his best to close in on the leader, but that quest was hurt by a snap of oversteer heading into the Melbourne Hairpin. It was a strange moment that was soon replicated by the sister McLaren of Tillbrook in the 47th minute, though this one had a much greater consequence.
It saw Tillbrook slide into the rear right of Beeson’s BMW and cause both to retire. “I don’t think he could’ve done anything,” said Barnicoat. “Fluid on track, it’s bad luck.” Though it was later understood that a brake bias issue on the McLarens were also responsible for the separate incidents.
Nevertheless, the crash caused a full-course yellow with green conditions returning after 52 minutes, 12 minutes before the mandatory GT3 driver change for which Collard jumped in with a 1.2s lead. But in an instant that rose to 6.6s as an efficient stop by Barwell, while the Warren/Brown McLaren dropped into third behind Dawson/Walker’s Mercedes, gave a pretty straightforward task for Cook in the final hour.
“I was pretty comfortable,” said Cook, 22, who simply kept it clean to give himself and Collard their second win of 2026 after round two at Oulton Park. “The Lambo in these conditions is fantastic,” added Collard, who looks set to go one behind Jonny Adam’s all-time title record of four. “We just drove the race, looked after the tyres, pushed when I needed to and Hugo did an excellent job.”
There was a change behind, however, as a late charge from Lulham saw the Briton, who usually plies his trade in GT World Challenge, overtake Brown and then Walker into second. This gave a double podium for 2 Seas, while fourth actually went to the Beechdean Aston Martin of Andrew Howard and Ross Gunn.
That’s because Brown/Warren initially received a drivethrough penalty for too many mechanics touching the McLaren – only four is allowed – during their driver change. But a radio problem meant the message struggled to get across to Brown, so the reigning GT4 champions eventually received a black flag and one-minute stop-go penalty for failing to serve the penalty within three laps. This dropped the pair into seventh behind fifth-placed Martin/Waberski, who performed a solid recovery, and Simon Orange/Marcus Clutton (Orange McLaren) in sixth.
Collard is looking to add to his titles from 2020 and 2024
Photo by: JEP
Mike Price/Callum MacLeod (Optimum McLaren) and Campbell/Josh Buchan (Rodin Ferrari) completed the GT3 finishers in eighth and ninth, while 10th overall went to the GT4 winners of Blake Angliss/Revie Lake (Paddock McLaren) – 16-year-old Lake becoming GT4’s youngest victor.
The Donington race leaves Collard/Cook on 122.5 points, jumping from fifth into the lead, with a 15.5-point advantage over Martin/Waberski, while a bruising race has left Tillbrook/Barnicoat in third and 20.5 points off top.
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– The Autosport.com Team
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