All Kells That Ends Well: Track Focused and Orange Racing With JMH Win Donington GT Cup Openers
Track Focused scored victory on its GT Cup Championship return at Donington Park, sharing success with Orange Racing with JMH Automotive in a brace of thrilling Sprints on Saturday afternoon (29 March).
With the new GT Cup 100 format kicking off the 2025 season at the East Midlands circuit, it brought with it new competition for top honours as no fewer than six GT3 entries jostled it out for the main trophies of the opening day.
Early spoils went to Simon Orange in the #67 entry of Orange Racing with JMH, after usurping Track Focused's Darren Kell at the first turn in the curtain-raising 25-minute contest. The latter's similar McLaren 720S was later victorious with Darren's son James Kell behind the wheel.
Group GTC was equally as hard-fought throughout the day. Two Lamborghini wins were logged by Topcats Racing and JMH Auto respectively, while former champion Paul Bailey (SBR Engineering) could claim the first piece of Group GTO silverware.
Honours in Group GTB were shared by Uber GT Performance and PMT Motorsport, alongside a tight GTH battle which went the way of both Feathers Motorsport and SVG Motorsport. GTA also crowned two different winners, those being Oselli Motorsport's Aston Martin Vantage and the BMW M4 of SVG Motorsport.
Tomorrow marks the first of the season's two flagship 100-minute races, with drivers including Colin Turkington joining the fray for the main event.
Qualifying
Under Leicestershire sunshine the track action was heating up as Simon Orange and Darren Kell traded fastest laps in their McLaren 720S GT3s.
Orange, in his own Orange Racing with JMH example, struck first but Kell - racing for Track Focused - was on a charge of his own and the pair were trading pole position until a red flag interruption. Orange could couldn't quite make the final step, finishing second by 0.078sec behind Kell. Mark Smith made it a McLaren top three in his Paddock Motorsport entry, just a quarter-of-a-second off Kell's pole time.
Fraser Fenwick picked up where he left off last season as he set the timing screens alight in the Topcats Racing Lamborghini Super Trofeo to head a team one-two in Group GTC, as Bal Sidhu marked his debut GT Cup qualifying session with a strong performance.
There was a battle for the pole in GTB as James Caley powered ahead in his Uber GT Performance Porsche, but had Tom Walpole's PMT Motorsport KTM breathing down his neck. It was looking like a Porsche pole until the closing minutes of the session when Walpole dug deep and powered to the top.
Paul Bailey took the honours in GTO in his McLaren, while GTA went the way of Oselli Motorsport's Aston Martin.
Sprint Race One
A winter of anticipation lived up to expectations as the first GT Cup race of 2025 proved to be a thriller.
From the very start, Darren Kell and Orange resumed their battle from qualifying as they knocked mirrors heading into Redgate. The latter came through the first turn as the leader as Kell ran slightly wide, and built up a buffer in his McLaren.
A mid-race safety car negated his advantage and allowed Greg Caton - running an eye-catching bare-carbon Porsche this weekend - to close in. The G-Cat racer was getting ever closer and as they went onto the final lap, Orange kept his cool to ensure Caton didn't get a chance of an overtake and take his first overall and GT3 win of the season.
Iain Campbell's great start in the #23 Topcats Super Trofeo allowed him to break clear and start off the team's title defence in the best possible fashion. It was a one-two for Topcats as George Jaxon pressured and then overtook Grahame Tilley at the Old Hairpin to snatch second.
PMT Motorsport's Walpole converted pole to Group GTB victory in his KTM, while Archie Clark took Group success in his first championship start for Feathers Motorsport in GTH. Matt Eddolls added a second win for Aston Martin in his older-spec Vantage in GTA. Bailey rounded out the winners as he took GTO success in his new McLaren 720S.
Sprint Race Two
An equally intense start played out later that afternoon, as Smith's Paddock Motorsport 720S surged through the centre to lead the second contest at Redgate.
The lead would be soon surrendered to the rapid James Kell - now behind the wheel of the #88 Track Focused entry - who began to stretch its legs out front. In a strong display, Kell would not be caught and took the second GT3 and overall victory of the day, ahead of the impressive Smith who rounded out his GT Cup debut day by holding firm against Caton and Orange in a flurry of traffic.
GTC was a lottery from start to finish. A Redgate spin for the #16 Lamborghini Huracan unintentionally hindered its sister #23 Topcats entry which took avoiding action, leaving the fight open between Triple M's Tilley and Frank Morris (JMH Auto).
The former held the early edge, but Morris grabbed back the advantage and a dramatic win in the closing minutes to earn his first triumph. Bill Caley was the star of GTB, sealing an exceptional Group win in the Uber GT Performance Porsche with a commanding drive.
GTH and GTA this time went the way of SVG Motorsport. Owen Hizzey was untouchable in his Ginetta G56 in the former of the Groups in question, denying Feathers Motorsport a double ahead of a wonderful fight between 24-7 Motorsport's Patrick Collins and Innovation Racing's Ray Harris.
Its BMW M4 - driven by Ian Astley in race two - made it an SVG double meanwhile with a fine drive to the chequered flag ahead of Oselli's Aston Martin.
#82 Archie Clark
“It was pretty good, and I really enjoyed it. Just learning the new layout because I haven’t done this kind of thing before so it’s a big learning curve for me. Really enjoyed it, it’s a big change because it’s a lot different from a Ginetta Junior but I’ve loved it. It’s quite entertaining because one car might be better round the straights and others are better on the corners so you’ve got to be quite smart while driving which I quite like. I’m really excited for the 100, I’m doing a driver change and Tom is teaming up with me and he’s fast so it should be good.”
#13 Tom Walpole
“Day’s been great, it’s been my actual first day out in the car throughout the whole of 2025 so it took a bit of getting used to to start with. But yeah, first race went really well and in the second I got caught up in turn one and was very lucky to miss the Lambo but got a lot of grass in the brake ducts so they were massively overheating so I just limped it the best I could. It was a great day, nice to see a good grid as well!”
#10 Mark Smith
“We had a good weekend so far, the car is feeling really good and I made some progress - putting in better times than I have here before and I’m just looking forward to racing with a bunch of these really fast guys. I love the format, I’m looking forward to the race tomorrow - it’s a long race with two stints back-to-back but I’ve done some endurance stuff before so it’s not going to be a new format for me.”
#27 Greg Caton
“It was a good day, first time we’ve run that car - it belongs to Dave Shaw, he was going to be here but unfortunately it didn’t work on Thursday and he didn’t have confidence so he just said ‘why don’t you run it for the day, set it up and make sure it’s alright?’ Good day, some tough competition out there and they’re throwing it so I was just keeping out of everyone’s way and getting some good results.”
#4 Grahame Tilley
“It was very close at the start because there was an accident and heaven knows how I missed it because I’ve been told it was very close! I chose a way to go and it sort of breathed in as I went through. Then the race was fine, and I had a good dice with Frank Morris in the Lamborghini, eventually he made a mistake and I managed to make it through and I thought ‘right, just keep your cool Grahame’. But I didn’t know who was in the race and I could see lights coming up behind me and I thought well there’s no point racing him because he’s lapping me, then I saw Lamborghini headlights and I wanted to keep him behind me but I missed the brake point so he got past and I wanted to race him but I ended up spinning, it turns out he was lapped!”
