Team Brit scored a landmark victory on its GT Cup and GT3 racing debut at Donington Park last weekend with its pairing of Jamie Falvey and Paul Fullick.
The squad enables drivers with a range of different disabilities to compete on track and its hand-controlled BMW M4 GT3 machine was the car to beat in Saturday’s opening 50-minute contest. Falvey quickly pulled clear after sweeping past Charlie Digby’s pole-sitting Lamborghini Huracan at the start. After taking over for the second stint, Fullick – an amputee – took the chequered flag with a 23-second winning margin.
“It’s been a dream,” said Falvey, who is aiming to race with the team at Le Mans in the future. “The guys have worked really hard in the off-season and given Paul and myself a really great car so I’m nothing but grateful.”
Racing solo, Peter Erceg climbed up two places early on to finish second in his Audi R8 while Mike Taylor came third after taking over driving duties from Digby – the pair claiming GTC class honours.
Rain resulted in the safety car leading the field for the first two laps of Sunday’s 100-minute enduro, with Falvey then resisting pressure from Taylor at the front while Erceg kept himself in contention behind them. A collision while attempting to lap another car forced Taylor into an unscheduled pitstop, leaving Erceg to take the fight to the leading BMW before handing over to Marcus Clutton.
With an additional pro-driver penalty to serve, Clutton had almost eradicated a 40s deficit to Fullick when the latter was forced to serve a stop/go penalty due to the team being under its minimum pitstop time when he took over from Falvey.
Audi of Erceg and Clutton got the better of Team Brit in race two
Photo by: Jonathan Mills
The return of the safety car on a drying circuit late on allowed most of the field to head for the pits to fit slick tyres, and Clutton cruised home a whole lap clear of Fullick once green-flag running resumed. Frank Morris and former British Touring Car racer James Pickford completed the podium and won GTC in their Lamborghini.
“Overnight we realised that we had changed the master cylinder and I hadn’t been applying enough brake pressure,” Erceg revealed of his improvement from race one. “To come away with our first overall victory in GT Cup is brilliant.”
Elsewhere, R Racing celebrated its 100th Ginetta Junior victory, as Lewis Goff began the new season in perfect style with a hat-trick of wins. The car-racing rookie comfortably led from lights to flag in the opener ahead of Pace Performance’s Harry Bartle and 2025 Ginetta Junior Winter Series champion Jesse Phillips. Red Bull Junior Melvin Kalousdian’s stirring recovery drive from ninth on the grid was hampered by a five-second track-limits penalty.
Goff repeated his success in race two, taking advantage of a battle for second between Bartle and Harrison Mackie to edge clear again, the latter surviving two trips through the gravel on his way to a podium finish.
The final contest took place on a drying circuit, and Mackie wrestled second on the opening lap from Bartle, who slipped back to fifth before a mid-race safety car period. A heavy rain shower arrived as racing resumed with four minutes remaining, and Mackie was caught out by the treacherous conditions at Old Hairpin. Having been promoted to second, Phillips challenged Goff through the final two corners but was unable to deny his R Racing team-mate a third-straight triumph, while Kalousdian took his first podium.
Donington dominator Goff helped R Racing achieve landmark 100th Ginetta Junior victory
Photo by: Jonathan Mills
It took just one corner for racing to be halted in the Focus Cup, as three-time champion Lewis Clark spun on cold tyres and was collected by Charley Hall, whose father Rich also went off at Old Hairpin. A shortened 10-minute contest followed, with Ian Mitchell edging John Baker to victory and Simon Walton denying Mark McCann third. McCann triumphed in the sequel ahead of Simon Langford and Mitchell.
Damien Harrington suffered a difficult start to the defence of his Mini Se7ens crown, as he was one of several drivers to retire in the gravel and trigger a red flag in race one. A thrilling four-way battle for victory raged once the action resumed, with a late clash between Spencer Wanstall and Daniel Munro allowing Glen Woodbridge to snatch the lead and Ross Billison to climb to second. Despite both being unaware it was the final lap, Woodbridge held off Billison in a drag race to the chequered flag to claim his first outright win by 0.095s, while Wanstall passed Munro three corners from home to complete the podium. Munro comfortably triumphed in race two, while Harrington recovered to fourth.
Aaron Smith prevailed in a race-long dice with Ian Curley to win the first Mini Miglia bout, while Kane Astin was pipped to third by Jeff Smith. A four-way scrap raged at the front of an even more frenetic sequel until Jeff Smith tangled with reigning champion Rupert Deeth in the closing stages. Sam Summerhayes was able to cruise to victory when final-lap radiator issues forced Astin to settle for second ahead of Phil Bullen-Brown.
It was a day of mixed fortunes for Jake McAleer as he kicked off the defence of his Porsche Club crown. Having swapped 997s over the winter with two-time champion Pete Morris, McAleer clipped a tyre stack at Fogarty Esses while leading race one and slowed with steering damage. Ed Hayes profited to win by almost half a minute in his Cayman S ahead of Steve Wood (996) and Jim Bryan (997). McAleer made amends by winning ahead of Oliver Chatham’s Cayman in race two, while McAleer’s father Mark snatched third in the final few yards after Morris was hampered by cambelt issues.
“I don’t think everything [on the car] was pointing as it was at the start of the day, but it was my fault, and we bounced back in the best possible way,” said McAleer Jr.
Meanwhile, in the Boxster Cup, Ethan Hall secured a dominant double triumph. Luca Masarati and Kuba Wozniak were best of the rest, but both spun out in separate late incidents during race two, with Brenden Haffner and Perry Darling completing the podium under the resulting red flags.
Hall was some way clear of his Boxster Cup rivals
Photo by: Jonathan Mills
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– The Autosport.com Team
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