Smith Off The Mark While Walpole Wins For KTM At Donington Park

Mark Smith earned victory on his return to the GT Cup Championship at Donington Park, sharing the wins with Tom Walpole on Sunday (28 June).

After a near-perfect Pitstop Race the previous day, Paddock Motorsport this time avenged their final lap heartache with a mature and composed drive by Smith on Sunday afternoon. He shared the day's victories with Walpole, who put in a sensational Sprint Race performance to win on the first weekend in GT Cup for the new Truemix Racing KTM X-BOW GT2.

There were double wins also for Innovation Racing and Triple M Motorsport, while Team BRIT and PB Racing by JMH shared the spoils in GT3.

Qualifying

After a strong showing on Saturday morning, Jamie Falvey was at it again in the second Qualifying session of the weekend. The Team BRIT man pumped in the best lap of the session to seal pole with a time of 1m27.646s, ahead of the best GTC machine of #4 Triple M Motorsport.

Smith was third outright ahead of yesterday's winner, Peter Erceg, in their respective Paddock Motorsport and PB Racing by JMH entries. The KTM of Truemix Racing and Tom Walpole was on top of GTO ahead of Warren Gilbert's crowd-pleasing Marcos Mantis, while GTH was a tight battle won by Innovation Racing's #25 Ginetta. The latter's squad also topped GTA thanks to its #11 Ginetta.

Pitstop Race

Falvey had a clear plan at the start of the day's 50-minute race - to clear off into the distance as much as possible. A great getaway enabled him to start the process, but a safety car wouldn't allow it for long enough as Smith kept glued to his rear diffuser.

On the restart, Falvey did make a break from the chasing Smith prior to the mandatory pitstops, leaving the lane with a gap of just over 10 seconds for Paul Fullick to defend with the pursuing Smith on the move behind.

The gap kept coming down and down over the final 15 minutes, until Smith caught his rival and sent the pink and black McLaren 720s GT3 up the inside into the Melbourne Hairpin to assume the race lead.

He would not be troubled from that moment, taking his first win of the season on his return in style. GT3 cars rounded out the top three, with Team BRIT second ahead of the recovering Audi R8 of Peter Erceg and Marcus Clutton. The latter's car lost ground from a moment early in the race, but both carved their way through the field to end up snatching third overall ahead of the GTO-winning KTM X-BOW GT2 of Tom Walpole.

The KTM also made its way by the Lamborghinis of both Topcats Racing (Jack Gadd & Dan Brown) and Triple M Motorsport (Charlie Digby & Felix Livesey) on his way to fourth outright, ahead of the GTC winners, Digby and Livesey. Gadd and Brown were next up in the group, with the GTC podium completed by a third Huracan ST of Frank Morris and Jamie Stanley (FHM Motorsport by JMH).

The battle in GTH was thrilling between several Ginetta teams at the head of the group. Innovation Racing's James Wareing was impressive as he kept Harry Yuill and Will Tregurtha at bay throughout the contest, the latter bringing the Triple M G56 to within four seconds by the time they all reached the chequered flag. Charlie Benson's fine charge from last to third was unrewarded after he and Ben Taylor's 24-7 Motorsport Ginetta was forced to pit late on, meaning a brilliant third in the group went to returning Oselli Motorsport, as Matt Eddolls Sam Maher-Loughnan brought the Aston Martin Vantage home for a trophy apiece.

GTA again went to the Innovation Racing duo of Kyle Wells and Bryn Calder, ahead of the SVG Motorsport BMW.

Sprint Race

The final race got off to a frantic start, with the best getaway of all being made by the KTM of Walpole, which shot up the inside of the front row pairing to move into the race lead on lap one.

Smith was the main man keeping him company for much of the race, until late on when both he and the Audi of Erceg started to lose touch with the X-BOW at the head of the field. A late twist arrived when Smith left the track at Old Hairpin when lapping slower traffic, meaning Erceg inherited second spot from the McLaren.

Walpole was peerless up front, and claimed his first win outright to also make it a clean sweep of success in the GTO group.

Erceg claimed GT3 behind him, while there was another whitewash behind as Triple M Motorsport's Lamborghini won again in GTC. GTH was exciting, won by Sam Branston ahead of an epic battle for second in the group. Jolt Racing's John Ingram carved through the field, snatching second place for the Ginetta of Harry Yuill to round off a good outing for the McLaren Artura team. GTA was once again taken by the Innovation Racing Ginetta of Wells and Calder on a strong weekend for the duo in East Midlands.

The GT Cup Championship next heads to the Home of British Motorsport, Silverstone, for two endurance races across the weekend of 1/2 August, featuring the second of the season's GT Cup 100 events.

#10 Mark Smith

“I really felt like I executed it well today in race one, made a few changes that made the window of performance of the car just a little bit bigger. The car could be fast yesterday but it was just so narrow that I couldn't be fast every lap and today I felt like I could be, so that helped a lot because once Clutton's in the car it's just like running away from a predator so we made sure that that gap was big enough today.”

#4 Felix Livesey

“Its been a good day, quiet day for me today, I've only done half the endurance but picked up the car leading the class. We had a five-second time penalty to overturn, think that in the end we won by about 15 seconds, so really happy with that. Team's been amazing so a big thank you to them for that.”

#117 Tom Walpole

"I'm ecstatic to be honest! Struggled all weekend, and it was brilliant to bring it home really. First outright win in the GT Cup, and yeah, I loved it. I managed to sneak in front at the very start, right up the inside and struggled to keep Mark behind really, we had a real cat and mouse race, but really thoroughly enjoyed it."