Smith shines on GT Cup return as the rain pours on Donington Saturday
Mark Smith overcame changeable conditions as he took his eighth and then ninth overall victories of the 2025 GT Cup Championship on the opening day of action at Donington Park.
Smith's two wins have reinvigorated his championship challenge having been forced to skip the Silverstone 100, but with PB Racing by JMH's Peter Erceg and Marcus Clutton picking up a brace of seconds, the Group GT3 title fight is still very much up for grabs.
Elsewhere, GTC wins were shared between Topcats Racing's Fraser Fenwick and PMT Motorsport's Tom Walpole - the latter snatching the Endurance race victory from Triple M's Mike Taylor in the closing minutes. GTH also had split winners as SVG Motorsport took Sprint success before Oselli took a breakthrough win in the Enduro.
SVG had more reasons to smile, as Neil Wallace and Ian Astley dominated GTA proceedings.
Qualifying
With rain looming large on the forecast, Saturday morning's qualifying session was held in mercifully dry conditions.
The dry conditions allowed for an almighty battle for Group GT3 pole to play out on-track. It was a battle of three drivers and two marques equally balanced as Peter Erceg in his Audi R8 fought it out with the McLaren 720Ss of Mark Smith and Darren Kell.
Initially, it was advantage Woking as Paddock Motorsport's Smith topped the times, before being pipped by Kell in his Track Focused example. But just minutes later, Erceg was lighting up the timing screens and he squeezed the four rings ahead by just 0.039sec with a 1m27.637sec. Such was the closeness in GT3, Smith was third but only a tenth off Kell and 0.145sec off overall pole.
GTC was a Lamborghini lock out at the front, as Topcats Racing's #23 Super Trofeo stormed to pole ahead of Jack Gadd. Meanwhile, GTH was a victory for Ginetta over Aston Martin as SVG Motorsport pipped Oselli to the spoils.
Sprint Race
When the rain finally descended on Donington Park, just in time for the first race of the day, the conditions were ones that no one would have particularly wanted as the track was greasy rather than fully wet. That meant even running wide by an inch could spell disaster.
Unfortunately, that’s what happened to the front-row at the very start. Negotiating Redgate for the first time, Darren Kell just dipped half-a-tyre on the kerb, kicked up a lot spray and the car just squirmed underneath him - making contact with pole-sitter Peter Erceg.
The pair carried on - Kell also having a spin down the Craner Curves - but the main beneficiary was Mark Smith who saw the road open ahead of him. He never looked back. Powering round Donington Park with aplomb, the Paddock Motorsport racer cruised to his eighth overall victory of the season.
Behind, it was GTC winner Fraser Fenwick - in the Topcats Super Trofeo - who took second on the overall podium after a faultless race for him. Though he was lucky the race didn’t go on for another lap, as Erceg was closing in quickly. Ultimately, though, the New Zealander took third overall, and second in GT3.
David Shaw rounded out the GT3 podium in his eye-catchingly liveried G-Cat Racing Porsche 911 GT3R.
The clock also assured Owen Hizzey of converting pole to victory in GTH, his Ginetta was being swarmed by Archie Clark’s Feathers Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage but the chequered flag came out with Hizzey just 0.4sec ahead.
SVG secured a pair of Group wins as Ian Astley added GTA honours to GTH success.
Endurance Race
The final race of the day was held under similarly damp conditions as rain storms blew through Donington in the hours leading up to the 50-minute Enduro. While the rain had stopped falling for the start of the race, the track - and crucially the grass - remained sodden.
Scrabbling to find grip, Kell and Smith - the front-row starters - made contact heading into Redgate, which caused the pack to concertina behind and led to others going off the ice-like grass. That necessitated the first safety car of the day to get everyone recovered.
On the restart, Team Parker Racing’s Adam Knight found himself immediately swamped as first David Shaw and then Smith relegated the Mercedes-AMG GT3 down to third. Shaw’s time in the lead was short-lived, as on just the second lap after the race went green once again the McLaren racer timed his braking into the Foggarty Esses to perfection and moved into the lead just before the pit window opened.
Smith retained his lead through both the pit window and a final safety car in the closing 10 minutes to recover Jack Gadd’s Lamborghini to take his second win of the day. While he was free and clear ahead, the action behind was fierce as Marcus Clutton powered the PB Racing Audi past the Porsche Greg Caton had taken over from Shaw to take another runner-up spot.
Behind, it was Kell - who was in the gravel on the first lap - who stormed back up the order to snatch third away from G-Cat on the run to the flag.
In GTH, the battle went all the way to the line as Sam Maher-Loughnan held off a monumental challenge from Sprint winner Owen Hizzey to take his and Matt Eddoll’s first Group victory of the season by 0.164sec as the Aston just out-powered the Ginetta on the run to the line.
Tom Walpole starred in his KTM as he fought off Mike Taylor to take the GTC win. The latter took two podiums in his GT Cup debut for Triple M Motorsport in the team’s Ginetta GTP8.
GTA went the way of Neil Wallace and Ian Astley, who put on a textbook display of careful driving in changeable conditions to pip Brent Millage to the win.
#23 Fraser Fenwick
"It was a good race, I really enjoyed it. We were unsure at the start [of the Sprint] whether to go with wets or to go with slicks but we decided to go where everyone else went so we went for wets. Got a really good start, I was really happy with it, and then a couple of cars in front had contact. Then all the way to the end I couldn't see out the windscreen so I don't know what went well and what didn't! It was dirty from the cars ahead going off, so I couldn't really see how the track was evolving but we were really happy with the pace and we got the result we wanted."
#13 Tom Walpole
"I really enjoyed it. So it's the second time that I've ever raced the car in the wet. And I'm really not confident in the wet, so following the first race, where I was stone last, yeah, it was great. Got on the podium, it's obviously my first win. So I've had a few thirds and seconds, but now with this, I'm really pleased with today."
#10 Mark Smith
"I was up and down. I was hoping to make a bit of a gap to get away from [Marcus] Clutton in the first half of the race. But obviously, there's a lot of yellows, so not a whole lot of opportunity to put a gap in. And of course, Kell, who is really quick too so it was gonna be tough regardless. But in the second half of the race Clutton had a good shot of catching me. But that safety car happened, and I had the benefit of having a GT4 between us so that I could gain some ground on him before he was allowed to pass that GT4 at the start finish. So that really worked in our favour and we managed to gain some ground in the championship."
#95 Sam Maher Loughnan
"It was chaos! Matt did a great job. A lot of it was under safety car so he just had to manage the tyres. He came in and we had a bit of a mistake in the pit stop, had a bit of a sticking throttle so we lost a bit of time there. Went out and I was kind of in no man’s land and all of a sudden, I was just in everyone’s land! It was chaos, and Owen [Hizzey] was coming up like a bolt. My tyres were pretty much ballooned at that point, but we kept pushing and got the win."
