Clutton displays his class as he and Erceg take Silverstone Saturday Spoils

Marcus Clutton demonstrated why he's one of Britain's top GT racers as he put on a GT Cup masterclass alongside PB Racing by JMH Automotive teammate Peter Erceg to take a thrilling victory on the first day of action at Silverstone. 

The home of British motorsport put on a sun-soaked thriller as teams enjoyed the starter before Sunday's 100-minute main course. In an action-packed 50-minute race, the Group wins went the way of Team Parker Racing, Innovation Racing, AF Corse and Raceworks Motorsport. 

Qualifying

The day began with an intense Qualifying session across all five groups. The battle for overall pole position would be narrowed down to a trio of GT3 machines, with McLaren, BMW and Audi all squabbling for bragging rights.

The former of the three makes would come out on top, as Gilbert Yates set a scorching time of 2m00.843s to grab pole on his GT Cup Championship return - also giving Greystone its first of the campaign in the #33 McLaren 720s GT3. His best was only 0.2s clear of Team BRIT's BMW M4, driven by Jamie Falvey, with PB Racing by JMH Automotive's Audi R8 LMS of Erceg in close proximity to both.

GTO spoils went to the Donington-winning Truemix KTM X-BOW GT2 of Tom Walpole to continue his strong form since returning to the series, while a late flyer by Frank Morris was sufficient enough to grab GTC pole and an impressive fourth place outright.

GTH featured a mightily competitive field, which feature a top-six covered by just 1.4s in a wide-open Qualifying contest. Best of the bunch was Sam Branston in the Innovation Racing Ginetta G56, just ahead of Matt Eddolls in the Oselli Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage. Group GTA pole was also in the hands of Innovation Racing, with its #11 Ginetta G55 leading the way from GT Cup stalwart, Chris Murphy (BMW M3). 

Pitstop Race

The weekend kicked off with a 50-minute Pitstop Race ahead of Sunday's longer showpiece, and it would be not short of drama from the moment the field took the rolling start under the gantry in Northampton.

A slippery surface proved the undoing of several cars unfortunately on lap one, as four cars suffered spins and left Falvey taking advantage as he swept into the lead ahead of the McLaren of Yates, which slipped wide at the fast Becketts corner.

Yates and Erceg both headed for an early pitstop before red flags were waved to tend to the circuit, leaving the race with just under 30 minutes of action when green flag racing resumed. Falvey headed the flying Parker Racing Porsche of Michael McInerney to the line to kick off the contest once again, but it wasn't long before the pitstop window opened and the shape of the race changed once again. 

With co-drivers - amongst them some of the country's best GT drivers - installed behind the wheel, Silverstone was treated to some of the best wheel-to-wheel action seen all season. To start with, Marcus Clutton - taking over from Erceg - scythed through the field, besting Team BRIT's Falvey before getting onto the tail of Greystone's Bradley Yates. The latter, competing in his first GT3 race in his debut season of car racing, was doing his best to fend off the Audi but Clutton's ascension was inevitable, taking the lead on the penultimate lap as he stormed to victory. 

Bradley, alongside Dad Gilbert, took second, with Falvey and Fullick third overall and in GT3. The overall position was held on by a thread, saved by the ticking down of the clock. That's because Phil Keen, swapping over from McInerney, was pushing his Porsche 911 as hard as possible and was picking up positions by the handful every lap. Passing JMH's James Pickford to take the GTC lead, he set his sights on on taking overall third from Fullick but ran out of time to make the move, instead taking a hard-fought GTC win alongside Driver of the Day, McInerney. 

GTH proved to be much more straightforward; Sam Branston ducked-and-dived his way through the first lap to end up at the head of the group and maintained his position, handing over to James Wareing to take victory ahead of the similar Ginetta G56 of SVG Motorsport's Cameron Pratt-Thompson and Marc Elman. 

Raceworks Motorsport's Andrew Perry and Daniel Quintero secured the GTA success, fending off the attentions of Woodrow Motorsport's Chris Murphy who was on fine form on his championship return. 

Sean Ran and Josh Steed took the glory in GTO, powering round the Northamptonshire asphalt in their AF Corse Ferrari 296.

#25 James Wareing

“The start was interesting, not sure what happened to others but Sam kept his nose clean and passed it over to me. I had a pretty easy job to be fair, so happy to bring it home in P1 which makes it five wins in a row now so over the moon. The Ginetta is such a good car to drive, I've not driven many GT4 cars before but I hopped into this and it's clicked."

#55 Phil Keen

“It was a brilliant race, Michael did a fantastic job of not boxing and following everyone into the pits. Then when the oil went down he overtook a couple more cars so really impressed with the job he did. Then it was just up to me to keep us in that position. The thing for us to win the Group and James was catching us very quickly behind and I really enjoyed it. Michael is amazing at the start, and he's great in tricky conditions and the more he drives the car the more he increases in confidence."

#33 Bradley Yates

"At the start, my Dad got a bit unlucky with the puncture. This was my first GT3 race and I was nervous beforehand assuming it would have been smooth sailing, handing the car over in first position but it just added a bit to the nerves! Just tried to focus on being consistent in the car, I didn't get a load of running yesterday just because of the time left in the session so I'm pretty happy with how I drove in the race. I've been trying to adjust from my first ever season of car racing in Ferrari Challenge this year and we've been talking about doing a GT3 race for a while because of how much fun everyone says the car is to drive. It's such a different car, it handles much differently and I'm just pushing hard to try and adapt."

#9 Peter Erceg

"The race started quite well, the BMW and the McLaren had a bit of argy-bargy which we thought might happen so stayed close but not too close to them to see what would happen. Then on lap two there was a bit of oil which I caught a little coming through Chapel and coming into Club I ended up spinning which was a bit unfortunate. I was hoping the safety car wouldn't come out because everyone was driving a shopping trolley in front of me so I thought I might be able to make some it back, but the safety car came out so my stint was eventful but not very long!"