Line reeling in long-time leader Bray in Ryan Insurance Autosport National Rankings

Could we be on for an end-of-season slugfest in the Ryan Motorsport Insurance Autosport National Rankings?

Long-time leader Ali Bray has had his advantage trimmed to two victories after George Line scooped a pair of further successes at Donington Park last Saturday as he continues his dominant season in the Monoposto Championship at the wheel of his 2008-model Formula 3 Dallara.

Bray has scored 17 wins during his all-conquering Mazda MX-5 Championship campaign, with Line on 15. While the Monoposto brigade have now completed their main series, they do have the end-of-term Tiedeman Trophy, fought out over six races, to come. Bray, meanwhile, has two further MX-5 weekends to come. If Line contests the Tiedeman races, it could be a close-run thing.

Line has extended an advantage of four wins over third-placed Simon Allaway, and in fact the next-highest-placed improver in the Rankings, which are based on the simple premise of who wins the most races over a UK and Irish motorsport season, is Jason Smyth.

The Northern Irish youngster was, like Line, in action at Donington. He took one win there in the United Formula Ford 1600 Championship at the wheel of his Van Diemen RF00/JL12 to move up six positions to eighth in the Rankings. His 10th win of the season means he is one of 12 in double figures for 2025.

Smyth’s margin of victory over Chris Middlehurst was just 0.137 seconds. If you think that’s close, he was pipped by Middlehurst to honours in the first race by a mere 0.020s. Success in that one would have lifted him to fourth in the table.

The next improver is Clubmans ace Steve Dickens, whose double triumph at Croft shifts him up 21 places to 15th in the table.

After that we have an intriguing one… Tom Bradshaw’s fifth and sixth wins of the Porsche Sprint Challenge GB season, taken the weekend before last at Knockhill, had propelled him to a spot just outside the top 50. Now he’s added two more victories to his tally in a very different machine – the Formula 1 McLaren MP4/1 of Steve Hartley – at the Silverstone Festival. That lifts Bradshaw to 20th in the Rankings, and we can’t think of anyone to ever feature in our table at the wheel of an early-1980s Cosworth DFV-powered beauty and Porsche Cayman!

One spot behind Bradshaw is Ross Wilkinson, who re-enters the table after two more wins in the Scottish Mini Cooper series at Croft, where he was the only driver in the top class against the lower-spec Cooper hordes.

Ryan Motorsport Insurance Autosport National Rankings

All car races in UK and Ireland are included except qualification/repechage, consolation and handicap races. No races in other countries.

Class wins are only counted when there are at least six starters in the class, except: when the race is part of a multi-stage event where six or more have taken part in earlier heats that feed into a semi-final or final; when multiple championships are merged in the same race, the ‘overall’ winner from the slower championship can count a class win as long as that championship has at least 10 starters across all classes.

Only classes divided by car characteristics are included, not those divided by driver characteristics such as ability, professional status, age, experience (for example rookie or pro-am classes). Each race counts only once, so an overall winner’s class win is not added. Where there is a tie, overall wins take precedence.

Where there is still a tie, average grid size for a driver’s wins determines the order.

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