Orange Racing By JMH And Team BRIT Win Big On Sunday At Brands Hatch

Sunday's GT Cup Championship action ended in victories for Orange Racing by JMH and Team BRIT, while JTM Engineering Ltd enjoyed a double with Daniel Perry at Brands Hatch in GTA.

An entertaining opening race ended with Simon Orange adding a second way of the weekend, before Jamie Falvey battled his way by the McLaren driver for a win in the Sprint contest.

GTO honours went the way of Tom Walpole in his KTM Xbow, before Paul Bailey rounded out the weekend with a win.

GTC was dominated by Triple M Motorsport as Felix Livesey and Charlie Digby took the wins in their Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo Evo, whilst GTH honours were split by Aaron Cooke in the Jolt Racing McLaren Artura and James Wareing in the Innovation Racing Ginetta. 

Qualifying

After picking up victory on Saturday afternoon, Orange started in style on Sunday morning in Qualifying. A great opening few minutes for the #67 McLaren 720s GT3 brought Orange to the top of the times, his best effort of 1m23.671s proving more than enough to seal pole position by 0.348s over closest rival, Morgan Tillbrook.

Jamie Falvey was not far back in the Team BRIT BMW M4, while Paddock Motorsport impressed with Mark Smith bringing their new Porsche 911 GT3 up into the top four ahead of Peter Erceg in a tightly-contested GT3 field.

James Pickford flew to the top of the GTC times in the JMH Automotive Lamborghini Huracan ST, knocking the recently rampant similar Huracan of Triple M Motorsport off their perch in doing so. Topcats Racing clocked the third-best times in the group with Fraser Fenwick and Bertie Bream aboard the #1 Lamborghini.

GTH was again a thrilling battle between 24-7 Motorsport and Jolt Racing. Aaron Cooke started strongest for the latter's McLaren Artura, but was soon beaten by Charlie Benson who made it two poles from two in the Ginetta G56. Innovation Racing headed the GTA field, while Tom Walpole gave Truemix Racing the edge in GTO with his KTM X-Bow GT2.

Pitstop Race

A wild Pitstop Race followed in the afternoon. From pole position, Simon Orange had to put up a stern defence in the early stages as the feisty BRIT BMW of Falvey put pressure onto the McLaren into Druids corner.

The fight continued throughout the opening stint, until a dramatic moment when contact for the BMW when lapping an Aston Martin sent the GT3 machine into the Paddock Hill gravel trap, one of two incidents that produced a red flag just as the pit window opened.

With his main rival out of the picture, Orange was able to pull clear on the restart and made no mistakes on his way to a second win of the weekend. With two GT3 group wins in the bag, the podium was rounded out by Tillbrook and the BRIT duo of FAlvey and Paul Fullick.

Walpole beat away the attentions of Paul Bailey and Jessica Hawkins in their Mercedes-AMG to earn a GTO triumph in the KTM, while one of the real squabbles of the race was in GTC.

A plethora of Lamborghinis was intercepted by the Team BRIT Ferrari, initially headed by Frank Morris in the #63 JMH Auto machine. A battling display from Bertie Bream was rewarded by several exceptional overtaking moves, clawing the #1 Topcats Racing Huracan up into the group lead ahead of Ali Topley in his Ferrari. The latter squeezed by the JMH car, but both lost out in incidents after the restart, allowing the Triple M Motorsport duo of Charlie Digby and Felix Livesey to creep back up the order and snatch the win ahead of Topcats Racing's Bream and Fraser Fenwick. Third went to Paddock Motorsport's McLaren Trophy entry of Tim Docker, sharing with Martin Plowman.

James Wareing took his turn to put in a mammoth full race effort in the #25 Innovation Racing Ginetta, and was rewarded with a brilliant GTH group victory ahead of their sister car, driven by Jamie Caudle and Tom Holland. The Constructive X UBIQ BMW duo of Andrew Dawber and Nathan Wright scored a well-deserved podium meanwhile after picking their way through the battles.

An exciting GTA fight ended with Daniel Perry winning for JTM Engineering Ltd's Ginetta, but only by 0.1s in a photo finish with the similar #11 machine of Innovation Racing. SVG Motorsport's Ian Astley and Neil Wallace rounded out the GTA podium in their BMW.

Sprint Race

The final Sprint contest was all about a frenetic opening lap. Falvey, keen to make amends after the Pitstop Race, went on the attack right from the off, and made a brave and bold overtake right around the outside of the McLaren of Orange into the first two corners to grab the lead of the race.

The GT3 and outright spoils were sealed almost from that moment, as Falvey drove a composed performance all the way to the chequered flag to bag a critical victory in their own title fight. Behind them, Tillbrook made a decisive move at Graham Hill Bend inside Orange to seal second in the group and outright for Optimum Motorsport.

Seventh outright was enough for Paul Bailey to graba win on his series return with SBR Engineering, while Triple M Motorsport added a fourth win on a strong weekend for Digby and Livesey.

The Jolt Racing McLaren was top of the pile in GTH to confirm two wins from four at Brands Hatch, with Caudle and Holland's Ginetta second for Innovation Racing next up and Triple M's Harry Yuill and Rob Garofall third.

GTA spoils looked set to go to Neil Wallace after a strong drive for SVG Motorsport, passing Daniel Perry's Ginetta in the final minutes of the race. However, an epic three-car dice ended with Wallace and Bryn Calder out of the race on the final lap, allowing Perry to snatch a second win of the day.

#25 Paul Bailey

"I was lucky that SB Race Engineering could get the car out today, and I'm glad that we could get a couple of good results. It's weird with the car, it was like I'd never driven it before, but it'll get better. I've not had the opportunity to test because I've only been feeling better in the last week or so, meaning we've not had time to test the car and on Friday it was the Indy weekend. But it's been a good weekend, thanks to everyone at GT Cup."

#1 Bertie Bream

"It was good. Considering I thought I was going to be starting from the pit lane, the restart allowed me to start on the grid. Then I just capitalised by making moves on lap one, luckily I managed to get first in Group and benefited from everyone battling behind to build a gap. The safety car shuffled things up a bit, I was hoping to come in the pits and come out in P1 even with our success seconds but safety cars happen! Overall, it was a good result, finishing where we started."

#17 Daniel Perry

"It was a fun race for us! I'm enjoying my time in GT Cup this season. After 10 years of racing, this has been my biggest step and results like today always feel good. We kept ourselves out of trouble in the early stages, and that was key to getting us in the position. It was a close finish as you might have seen! I think with another couple of laps it would have been tough to hold him off, but we managed to do it. To finish first, first you have to finish.”