Barwell Motorsport claimed its ninth British GT race victory at Oulton Park this morning, after Hugo Cook fended off 2 Seas Motorsport’s Maximilian Götz in the closing stages of the first race of the day.
Reigning GT3 Drivers’ champion Rob Collard put the #1 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2 on pole position before his teammate, Cook, impressively held the #18 Mercedes-AMG GT3 at bay during the final sprint to the end, denying Götz and Kevin Tse a win from fourth on the grid.
“It was just counting down the laps in the end,” said Cook after taking the win.
“To be honest, it was so nice to drive the car, I felt really comfortable.
“Now going into Race 2, we’ve got the [10-second] pit stop penalty, so it’s going to be a bit tricky, starting further back (in seventh), but we’ll see what we can do.
“Hopefully, there’s a bit of changeable weather which might mix it up, so we’re looking to get back up there.”
“I tried really hard to push him into a mistake,” added Götz, “but he wasn’t doing it.
“So in the end, I also did a great job staying in front.
“It’s hard to overtake here on this track. In the next race, we’ll need some good qualifying laps to get the gap because of this (7-second pit stop) penalty we have now.”
At the start, Collard fended off Blackthorn’s #7 Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 Evo driver Giacomo Petrobelli into the first corner, resulting in minor contact, before establishing an early gap.
Petrobelli pushed again to hunt down the leading Barwell Lamborghini, though, creating a three-way fight for the lead with the top three covered by under a second before the round of pit stops.
But Blackthorn would then lose out during the pit stop sequence, as the #18 Mercedes-AMG driven by Kevin Tse jumped the #7, adding to the 2 Seas car’s strong start.
After a full-course-yellow and a safety car period, deployed due to an incident for a GT4 car, a 21-minute stretch of green flag racing set the challenge for Cook to hold his lead on Götz while managing traffic.
Jonny Adam, four-time champion in the British GT championship, took third place in the #7 Blackthorn Aston Martin, having been the first to break Jules Gounon’s outstanding track record from 2023.
Adam initially completed a 1:33.799, beating Gounon’s 1:31.713, before competing for the fastest lap honour with Team Parker Racing’s Sven Müller in the #66 Porsche 911 GT3.R – who eventually set the new benchmark with a rapid 1:33.380.
The #42 2 Seas Motorsport Mercedes-AMG started by Charles Dawson endured a 10-second time penalty after making contact with the rear of Simon Orange’s #67 McLaren GT3 Evo, which was running strong in P4 before being tapped into a spin.
Sam Neary of the #8 Team Abba Racing Mercedes-AMG inherited fourth after Keirn Jewiss’ penalty dropped the #42 from P4 to P9.
Barwell #78 Lamborghini driver Sandy Mitchell claimed fifth with his teammate Alex Martin, adding to Barwell’s strong start to the Bank Holiday clash.
Mitchell fended off Müller, but was unable to find an opportunity to sneak past. The #66 Porsche did extremely well to finish sixth after starting on the back row in the hands of Nick Jones.
Spirit of Race #55 Ferrari 296 GT3 pairing Matt Griffin and Duncan Cameron took seventh place, ahead of #77 Optimum Motorsport McLaren’s Marvin Kirchhöfer and Morgan Tillbrook.
As the #42 2 Seas Motorsport machine finished ninth, the #3 Optimum Motorsport McLaren duo of Mike Price and Callum Macloed rounded out the top 10.
Beechdean’s #97 Aston Martin suffered a right-rear puncture with Andrew Howard at the wheel and finished three laps down.
Brown claims second season win as Mahiki claims maiden podium
Meanwhile, in GT4, the battle for the lead was also intense as reigning champion Jack Brown emerged triumphant with Marc Warren in the #90 Optimum Motorsport McLaren Artura GT4 after 31 laps.
For 23 minutes of the race, the main lead battle was close between the #17 Optimum Motorsport McLaren of Luca Hopkinson and the #71 Century Motorsport BMW M4 GT4 Evo by Ravi Ramyead.
Ramyead fended off Hopkinson following a brilliant start, which saw him move from P3 into the lead, but his efforts went unrewarded.
He ended up running wide on the grass, while trying to avoid approaching GT3 traffic, into Island Bend before suffering a front-end hit into the barriers. He safely got out of the car on his own, but the car was heavily damaged. It has been withdrawn from the meeting and will not take part in Race 2, a crushing blow for the championship hopefuls.
Mahiki Racing, the team behind running the trio of Lotus Emira GT4s, finally found a way onto the podium after its tough start to the season. The #69 duo of Steven Lake and Jack Mitchell finished second from sixth, and will look to build on the result later today.
“Jack did most of the work,” admitted Lake, “a few accidents on the track, but yeah, it was good fun.
“It’s a hard track to get around, it’s small and close for GT cars, so we kept the pace, stayed where we were… with the full-course-yellow, we timed it right for the pit stop.”
It was by no means a perfect outing, though for Makhiki, as its other Emiras retired in isolated incidents, as Ramyead rounded out a trio of retirements in the race.
Century’s other BMW, the #14, took third place in the hands of Chris Salked and Branden Templeton ahead of the fourth-placed #17 Optimum McLaren duo.
Race 2 continues the action at 15:50 local time for Round 4 of the 2025 British GT Championship.
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Images courtesy of JEP/SRO
