Looking Ahead - Season Opener at Donington Park

This weekend marks the opening round of the 2022 GT Cup Championship season. A packed grid of forty cars will take to the National Circuit to battle it out for the firsts sets of championship points. With nine manufacturers spread across four race groups, and four races across the weekend, fans are guaranteed a cracking event.

The GT Cup this year features four groups – GTO, GT3, GTC, and GTH. Many former GTB and GTA competitors have upgraded their machinery and subsequently joined GTH leading to GTB and GTA being dropped from the grid.

But what about the grid? The GT Cup is delighted to welcome forty full-season entries across the four groups. Group GTO is the championship’s Open Specification group and this year features Richard Chamberlain’s unique Porsche 935, a Radical RXC, the only McLaren MP4-12C Can-Am left in the world, and a Marc 11 V8 Mustang. An eclectic mix to be sure.

Group GT3 does exactly what it says on the tin and hosts cars homologated to the manufacturer’s GT3 specification. This season we’ve got McLaren, Mercedes, Porsche and Lamborghini represented in the group across 11 entries. Last season’s champions Team Abba Racing are back to defend their titles with father/son duo Richard and Sam Neary sharing driving duties once again.

Challenge and Cup cars find their home in Group GTC and this season the group features machinery from Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, and Ginetta. Topcats Racing walked away with the Group Title last year and is back for another season with not one, but two Lamborghini Huracans. Jensen Lunn and Warren Gilbert will be looking to defend their crowns, while Charlotte Gilbert and Charlotte Birch upgrade from the faithful Marcos Mantis to the team’s second Lamborghini.

Group GTH was the largest and most competitive group last season and is shaping up to be just as spectacular this year. With 18 entries in this group, it’s going to be exciting to see how the title fight develops. The group’s 2021 champion has moved into Group GT3, so no title defenses here. Fans of McLaren will have plenty to enjoy in this group with nine of them making up the grid. With Porsche, Ginetta, Audi, and Mercedes also represented, there is a good variety of GT4 homologated machinery on display here.

The structure for the weekend remains largely unchanged, though there has been an improvement to Qualifying. Each day will now feature a split qualifying so that competitors qualify in two groups. The grouping is the same as for pitstops so groups GTO, GT3, and GTC will run in one group, while Group GTH forms the second group. The split should ensure competitors have more time and space to get in that perfect qualifying lap.

This is the first of seven weekends for the GT Cup and there are tons of different awards up for grabs at the end of the season including the Sprint Challenge for sprint races and the Sporting Challenge for purely sporting driver lineups. Track action kicks off on Saturday morning with free practice at 9.40 am. Plus, all four races will be broadcast live on Facebook and YouTube.