I attended rounds 5 and 6 of the GT Cup Championship at Brands Hatch.
The GT Cup Championship was founded in 2007 by Marc Haynes as premium GT Sprint series.
The aim of the championship to to provide a genuine driver race experience, putting sportsmanship and fun first. Add to this access for the drivers to quality race tracks giving the best service at an affordable price. Finally they look to share their passion with like minded racers and to create an environment to delight the drivers, teams, families and supporters.
The GT Cup aim is to help amateur drivers improve their race and driving skills with a professional drivers and have fun doing it.
Professional drivers may enter the championship with an amateur driver as a two driver team.
Former drivers from this championship have gone on to race in the British GT Championship, World Endurance Championship and more.
The minimum requirement to enter the GT Cup is to hold an Inter Club (Race National B) License.
The GT Cup is home to a broad range of past and present GT race car. The grid is split into 6 groups.
These are:
GT3 - For homologated GT cars running to the manufactures specification and subject to either current or the FIA performance figures that will be set down on the GT Cup balance of performance document before each race. .
GTO - Open specification cars built by very low volume manufactures (subject to meeting the balance of performance and the maximum power to weight for the group). GT2 and GTE class cars, modified challenge cars, cars that are not derived from universally recognised volume GT manufactures.
GTC - Later model year Challenge Cup specification cars, with performance balancing where required.
GTB - Early year Challenge Cup cars with minimum specification changes together with modified saloon based GT cars.
GTH - For homologated cars running to manufactures GT4 specification.
GTA - Lower specification Cup, Challenge and one make series cars.
Brands Hatch is a drivers circuit that has up and down hill sections, tight turns and fast straights. All of this and the wide range of race cars made for an action packed weekend of racing.
Pit Lane Photos.
Make a note of this picture and compare it to the one at the end.
Racing photos and clips.
Richard Neary and Ian Loggie driving the No 6 Team Abba Racing Mercedes AMG GT3.
Richard Chamberlain driving the No 5 CTR Developments Porsche 935.
Paul Bailey and David Brabham driving the No 1 Kendall Developments Brabham BT62.
Fire.
Doc Bush driving the No 75 Team Parker Racing Porsche 911 GT3 GT Cup.
Charlotte Gilbert and Tom Rawlings driving the No 2 Topcats Racing Lamborghini Super Trofeo.
Jodie Sloss and Rianna O'Meara Hunt driving the No 10 Forsetti Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage GT4.
Chris Murphy driving the No 72 Woodrow Motorsport BMW M3 GTR.
Jensen Lunn and Steve Burgess driving the No 99 Tim Gray Motorsport Radical RXC. Sadly this car went over a barrier during qualifying on Saturday and would take no part in the racing. The driver walked away from the incident.
Charles Dawson and Seb Morris driving the No 31 Team Parker Racing Mercedes AMG GT4.
James Townsend and Leona Theobold driving the No 86 SVG Motorsport Ginetta G56 GT4.
Ray Harris driving the No 25 Driven Performance Engineers Ginetta G55.
Miles Rudman Team Parker Racing Porsche 911 GT3 GT Cup.
Shamus Jennings and Greg Caton driving the No 33 G-Cat Racing Porsche 911 GTR GT3.
Jay Shepherd driving the No 7 National Motorsport Academy Lotus Evora.
Stephen Walton and Chris Hart driving the No 69 Morpheus Motorsport Mercedes AMG GT4.
Matthew Higgins and Mikey Porter driving the No 9 Forsetti Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage GT4.
Warren Gilbert driving the No 3 Topcats Racing Lamborghini Super Trofeo.
Michael Orant and Jake Poole driving the No 11 Paddock Motorsport McLaren Artura GT4.
Paul Bailey and Richard Chamberlain heading towards Druids.
Shamus Jennings and Paul Bailey doing battle. This would last for most of the sprint race.
Jay Shepheard leading Charles Dawson and Stephen Walton. As the Lotus drove by you could hear an odd rattle coming from the back end of the car, it did not sound healthy.
Paul Bailey still behind Shamus Jennings.
A lap later and it was time for the Lotus to stop racing.
Back in it's garage, a mechanic looks for the problems.
The odd rattle was the rear splitter bouncing up and down causing damage to the Lotus, when the mechanic came out from the car, his hand was covered in oil. National Motorsport Academy were hoping to fix the problem by the time the Pit Stop Race started.
I'm a fan of this championship, it has a wide range of cars some of them are very rare and to see them racing is amazing.
I spoke to Kevin Riley from the National Academy of Motorsport Team about the Mosler they ran last season, Kevin told me that it would return to action this season having had a Mosler works engine installed.
This championship currently has four female drivers, Charlotte Gilbert, Leona Theobold, Jodie Sloss and Rianna O'Meara Hunt, Charlotte Gilbert is previously an outright race winner as well as GTC Class Champions with Topcats Racing.
The drivers are very happy chat and made me feel very welcome and the paddock had a relaxed atmosphere, it's very different fell to the British GT Championship. I Like both but in different ways.
And then there is the noise of these cars engines, the best far and away is the Brabham BT62.
Bute Motorsport, the company behind the GT Cup and Race Director Hannah James work hard to make sure the racing is close even though there are several categories of cars racing
I'm not going to reveal the results of the races, instead I'm going to encourage you to go and visit the GT Cup's YouTube channel and watch the races, a link is below.
I look forward to seeing how the rest of the season plays out.
For further information about the GT Cup please find links below to their website and YouTube Channel.
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