Khera Thanks Lucky Stars With Maiden GT Cup Win At Brands Hatch

Hugo Cook took his second win of the season, before Lucky Khera and Euan Hankey sealed their first GT Cup Championship victory of 2023 in a thrilling second day at the historic Brands Hatch Grand Prix Circuit.

In a pair of races that showcased the best racing GT Cup has to offer, Paul Bailey and Ross Wylie left the Kent countryside with the overall championship lead despite having to swap his Brabham to an ex-Hugo Cook Mercedes-AMG GT3. Even with the  change of scenery, the pair took a GTO win and a podium.

Cook and Khera/Hankey shared the spoils overall and in GT3, while Marcus proved he's not the only talented Short as he combined with brother Morgan to win the Pit Stop race in GTO.

GTC featured a first win of the season for perennial championship contenders Topcats Racing in the opening race of the day. Matty Evans & Kevin Clarke highlighted their own title-chasing status with a hard-fought win in the Sunday afternoon enduro to add to Clarke's Saturday Sprint triumph.

Gustavo Xavier secured his third GTH win of the weekend with a speedy performance for RAM Racing, while post-race penalties elevated Paddock Motorsport to victory in the Pit Stop Race. 

Qualifying

With sunshine and blue skies the order of the day once again, the grid had the perfect  conditions to set the timing screens alight with two 15-minute qualifying sessions easing everyone into another day of frenetic action. 

For the longest of times, it looked as though Sam Maher-Loughnan was going to make it a brace of poles for Drivetac powered by Track Focused with his 1m24.067s looking like an increasingly unstoppable time as the clock ticked down to zero. However, on his final lap Cook unleashed a monstrous final sector to put his J&S Racing Audi R8 onto pole by three tenths of a second.

Marcus Short copied brother Morgan to put the National Motorsport Academy Mosler onto GTO pole with a lap record time in Group. He qualified third overall and a fraction ahead of Morgan Tillbrook, who rounded out the second row in his Enduro Motorsport McLaren 720S GT3.

GTC honours went to Gilbert Yates in his mean-looking Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo quite comfortably, while Xavier added pole to his long list of honours from his Brands Hatch debut weekend as he prevailed over Chris Hart to take the GTH top spot in his RAM Racing Mercedes-AMG. 

Sprint Race

Round Seven proved to be a masterclass of Cook's growing racecraft as he controlled a 25-minute encounter. The J&S Racing driver shot off from the start and built a comfortable lead as Maher-Loughnan kept within striking distance on the always tricky Grand Prix Loop.

A late safety car to recover a car from the Stirling's gravel trap put a spanner in Cook's trouble-free run to the chequered flag, but he perfectly paced the two-lap dash to the flag to not give the Mercedes a sniff in the Audi man's second GT3 win of the season.

Paul Bailey swapped from the Brabham BT62 to Mercedes-AMG GT3 - the consequence of technical problems for the Australian machine - but still came away with silverware as he powered his way to the GTO Group victory. 

GTC also had an entertaining battle for the win, with the Lamborghini Super Trofeos of Warren Gilbert and Gilbert Yates putting on a great to-and-forth show. Yates pulled off the move of the weekend with an inch-perfect lunge on the Topcats Racing machine going into Surtees. However, an unscheduled trip to the pits for the Blackthorn racer handed Gilbert his first Group win of 2023.

Xavier secured a hat-trick of triumphs as he steered his RAM Racing Mercedes to the top. Initially relegated from the lead by a faster starting Stephen Walton, Xavier bided his time to re-pass the Makehappen Racing Mercedes-AMG GT4 and from there built up a substantial lead to take another GTH success.

A battle between Walton and Feathers Motorsport's James Guess went the way of the Aston Martin racer as Guess continued to burnish his championship credentials with another second-place. 

Pit Stop Race

The final race of the weekend proved to be an absolute thriller with the results in all the groups not settled until the final chequered flag finally flew.

At the start, Lucky Khera was all over Sacha Kakad's Audi for the lead, but the J&S Racing man was too wise to give Khera an easy run through for the lead and made the Race Lab driver work for any sniff of an overtake. 

When the move did come, it was straight out of the Brands Hatch overtaking textbook as he carried more speed into Westfield and squeezed his way through. From there, Khera built a comfortable lead heading into the mandatory pit window and handed over to Euan Hankey comfortably ahead of the chasing GT3 field. 

Hankey solidified victory with a perfect race restart - after a safety car to recover Maher-Loughnan's Drivetac Mercedes which suffered a mechanical fault - and won by more than 10 seconds. Kakad and Cook secured second, with G-Cat Racing marking its return to GT Cup with a podium for Shamus Jennings & Greg Caton.

GTH was a thriller. Success penalties shook up the order in the pits and Chris Hart found himself in the lead in the Makehappen Racing Mercedes, but under pressure by the majority of the Group. The biggest challenge came from Tom Canning, as the Feathers Motorsport driver came out the pits in fourth and powered his way up the order. 

Coming into the penultimate lap, Canning had a better run through Paddock Hill Bend  and sneaked his way through. Hart didn't give it up easily, and it was only a slightly faster run down towards Clearways that secured Canning & Guess first on the road. 

However, post-race judicials for yellow flag infringements meant the win in the Group went to Tim Docker and Jordan Albert - Paddock Motorsport's second win of the season having secured victory at Donington Park. 

GTC was also a blockbuster. The early stages were led by a hard-charging Patrick Collins, with Matty Evans looking to keep him honest in the Woodrow Motorsport Lamborghini. Come the pitstops, Clarke was able to prevail in a head-to-head with Russ Lindsay to secure more silverware for the squad.

Starting from the back of the field, National Motorsport Academy took a double in GTO with Morgan Short joining brother Marcus for the enduro.

#82 James Guess

"Being able to make a pass around the outside (in the Sprint race) - it's not often that you get the chance to try something like that so to do that and get through it cleanly felt good. We've enjoyed ourselves this weekend; it's still been hard work to get the results we have done and it's key to keep getting these points and keep going to see where we end up later in the season."

#32 Hugo Cook

“A good result. All I was focusing on in the Sprint race was getting a good start and trying to get a gap at the front. After that it was about controlling the pace, fighting through traffic and it was enough to get the win in the end."

#13 Euan Hankey

“An unbelievable drive. The race was a little bit tactical in my head to take on the Audi with its time penalty, but then when Lucky moved up to second I thought 'yes!' He then set up the move on the Audi brilliantly, so I'm over the moon with that and Lucky is driving brilliantly. We've got the car in a really good place now."

#999 Patrick Collins

"Last year we were racing a McLaren and neither of us could get used to it as it was a bit too electric for us. Now the Porsche is a lot more raw, and is much nicer to get our head around. We struggled a bit at Donington but here it just clicked. A great race, and we're right in the mix. The weather has been great, the track was consistent and the car was brilliant all weekend thanks to the team at JMH."