The nation’s most glamorous racing series gets underway this weekend with the British GT Championship Silverstone 500 race as the world’s most coveted supercars tackle the hallowed Grand Prix venue in a high-speed assault on the senses.
The 2026 British GT Championship brings together exotic machinery from Aston Martin, BMW, Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren and Mercedes as 15 season entries and several one-off contenders compete for overall honours in the GT3 class. With bespoke racing aerodynamics and chassis modifications, these are among the most extreme racing cars in British circuit racing. Additionally, 11 more lightly-modified GT4 cars from Aston Martin, BMW, Ginetta, McLaren and Porsche will fight for class honours, the whole field bringing the sonorous spectacle of 6, 8 and even 10-cylinder engines to Silverstone.
GT racing also has several sub-classes depending on driver experience, mixing together amateur and professional competitors who pair up to share the wheel of the cars during the three-hour race. This adds an element of strategy as teams must make pit stops as well as setting up their cars so that both drivers are able to lap at maximum pace regardless of driving style.
In order to equalise front-engined coupes such as the BMW M4 with mid-engined carbon fibre supercars like the McLaren 720S, the championship uses a ‘Balance of Performance’ system. This equalises power-to-weight between the different cars using ballast and engine restrictors and guarantees close racing where driving ability and slick teamwork make the difference.
The result is that it is notoriously hard to predict a winner in British GT races and title battles are often fought out between several teams at the last of the season’s six rounds. There are, however, former champions in the field, including amateur driver Andrew Howard, who is joined by former GT4 champion Ross Gunn in the Beechdean Motorsport Aston Martin and former British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) race-winner Rob Collard (Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan) in the GT3 class, plus reigning GT4 champions Marc Warren and Jack Brown who have traded up their Optimum Motorsport McLaren Artura GT4 for a 720S GT3.
Taking part in this weekend’s Silverstone 500 will be reigning British GT Champions Charles Dawson and Kiern Jewiss in the 2 Seas Mercedes-AMG in between their GT World Challenge Europe commitments. The pair missed out on Silverstone 500 victory by just 0.6s last year and will be joined by the squad who beat them; fellow former champions Darren Leung and Dan Harper in a Paradine BMW M4. Both crews will be favourites for race victory – and the chance to hold aloft the historic 1932 RAC Trophy – but neither will be able to score championship points.
The GT4 class features several big names this year, including Aston Martin-affiliated drivers Jessica Hawkins (MK Racing Vantage) and Darren Turner (Grange Racing with FSR Vantage), as well as four-time BTCC champion Colin Turkington, who makes his series debut with former historic rally driver Ernie Graham in the WSR Flexifly BMW M4. Turkington could become only the second driver to win both BTCC and British GT titles, Chris Hogetts being so far the only one to do so.
Following the opening Silverstone 500 round, the 2026 championship heads to Oulton Park for a double-header of one-hour races on the late May Bank Holiday weekend, then onto Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium for its traditional two-hour overseas race. This is followed by the second doube-header event at Snetterton and two closing two-hour encounters at Donington Park and Brands Hatch, with the title likely to be decided at the latter venue in late September.
Click here to head to the Donington Park website for more information about this weekend’s event and to book tickets.
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