GT & Sports Car Cup 2026: On Your Marques! Get Set! GTSCC 20 is Go!
Silverstone International Trophy
Celebrating its landmark 20th season, the proudly independent GT & Sports Car Cup series opens at Silverstone - ‘The Home of British Motor Racing’- on Saturday, May 30. As focal point of the BRDC International Trophy event, following official practice to determine the grid in the morning, our two-hour afternoon race on the demanding 3.63-mile Grand Prix circuit centres on Pre-1966 Gran Turismo cars. It promises to be another gripper, with 2009 race winners John Clark and Jeremy Welch - both ardent series supporters - on the strong entry, this time driving Jaguar E-type and Austin-Healey 3000 respectively.
Spanning a spectrum of iconic motor manufacturers, each boasting rich international motorsport history - some in both racing and rallying - the Silverstone contest was first run in 2008, when Peter Horsman emerged victorious in a featherweight Lotus 17 powered by a Coventry-Climax engine. Over the years Jaguar E-type crews have won outright eight times, outscoring AC Cobra teams by one. The other Lotus success came in 2014, when local ex-F1 engineer Mark Lewis and Scot Jamie McIntyre saddled a Climax FPF-powered 15.
Inter-marque battles have always been a feature of the smaller-capacity GT2 and GT3 categories, and that competition will be renewed this year. All but one of the nine marques which form this year’s line-up were based less than 90 miles from Silverstone, handily placed on a decommissioned airfield less than two hours’ drive north of London and south of England’s traditional industrial heartland.
The strongest split is GT2, arguably the most accessible to GTSCC newcomers. Here a posse of MGBs, originated in Abingdon, south of Oxford where Morris Garages provided the concern’s acronym and octagonal logo when Cecil Kimber founded it in 1924. MG had been part of the British Motor Corporation for a decade when the ‘B’ was launched. Around 78,000 examples were made over the model’s first four years, the era we showcase.
Family teams have long enjoyed MGBs, none more enthusiastically than the Phillips clan, Beverley, husband Chris and son Oliver who have shared Mrs P’s car for more than 10 years. Sisters Arabella and Emily Welch - of the Denis Welch Motorsport dynasty which kindly supports our event’s social hub - and father and son Nick and Chris Thompson are welcome returnees too. Newcomer Jonathan Hopper has engaged the vastly experienced Chris Ward to guide him, Mark Hope is teamed with Jason Minshaw, Ian Stinton with Tony Wood and Ian Beattie with Thomas Poulton.
Homologated initially in 1961 at a weight of just 573kgs, with sweet 1216cc Climax FWE engines, the quartet of glassfibre monocoque chassised Lotus Elites will be the quickest cars through the tighter corners where their innate balance in unsurpassed. Styled by visionary Peter Kirwan-Taylor, the pretty coupes took Colin Chapman’s North London-based enterprise to Le Mans but found greater success in short sprint races.
Following the lead of Americans Benjamin Tarlow/Mark Hamilton Peters and Michael O’Sullivan - who has coach Olly Bryant as trump card in his car - we welcome transatlantic commuter Lee Hower and UK-domiciled compatriot Tim Gregorio who make their GTSCC debuts. Former British rugby union international and Harlequins captain David Cooke brings enormous breadth of experience - from sublime pre-war straight-eight Alfa Romeo to grunty AC Cobra - and pilots his stunning pale green Costin-nosed Elite with Andrew Yates.
The Morgan ‘side,’ from the fabled family stable in rural Worcestershire, comprises a brace of Triumph-engined Plus 4 Super Sports, evolved from the 1962 Le Mans class-winning car of renowned engineer Christopher Lawrence - who raced Jack Pearce’s Cooper-Ferrari V12 T73 to a distant 11th in the 1966 British GP at Brands Hatch, incidentally - and Richard Shepherd-Barron. Simon King and John Emberson share the former’s while Sharlie Goddard and Graeme Smith renew their partnership.
Everybody in super-competitive GT2, however, will keep a close eye on the lone TVR Grantura MkIII of veterans Malcolm Paul and Rick Bourne, a charismatic combo with the strongest record in GTSCC history. Powered by a more advantageously homologated BMC B-series engine than the MGB, the Blackpool-built TVR’s nimble tubular-framed chassis, to which the GRP shell is mounted, also contrasts with the MGB’s sturdy steel monocoque.
Moving to the GT3 category, the Austin-Healey 3000s from Warwick are numerically dominant, with some extremely talented drivers among the sextet. Past master Jeremy Welch has a seat alongside Oliver Marçais in the ex-Tony Worthington car which has joined the latter’s family stable. Like Welch, Jack Rawles and Richard Woolmer are hotshoes brought up in renowned Healey families. They share with VSCC Riley racer Alex Hewitson and newcomer Robert Jennings respectively.
Crispy Moth Racing duo Crispin Harris and James Wilmoth have won the category before in their faithful machine, PSL 207, and can again. Mark Pangborn/Harvey Woods have competitively raced ‘Squealeys’ for years and are due a change of fortune. Joe Ward - who graduated from his TVR Grantura “Fred” last year - has enlisted son Piers to share his 3000.
Ranged against the rorty three-litre BMC straight-six engined Healeys is the 2.1-litre four-cylinder Triumph TR4 of another dad-and-lad, Allan and Dan Ross-Jones. Headquartered in Canley, Coventry, very close to its class rival’s origins, Standard Triumph’s Michelotti-designed sportscars could not match the Healeys’ power of course, but demonstrated their proficiency in rallying, handling solidly.
GT4 stars another Coventry marque: Jaguar no less, with five Le Mans 24 Hours victories already behind it through XK120 C and D-types of the 1950s. Three snarling 3.8-litre straight-six DOHC-engined E-types are entered, with the Pearson brothers, John and Gary gunning for a third GTSCC victory here having won in 2022 and ’23 in John’s bubble-topped roadster. Scottish motor trader extraordinaire John Clark OBE has teamed up again with Cotswolds charger Ben Mitchell in his patriotic metallic blue roadster. Aided by Welshman Karl Jones they finished fifth at Castle Combe last September. Canadian Read Gomm is another long-standing combatant in his low-drag coupe with Andy Keith-Lucas, one of three alternative body configurations homologated.
Big-banger opposition comes from the 4.7-litre Ford V8-motivated AC Cobra Daytona Coupe of doughty Bristolians David Smithies and Chris Clarkson. Their Ford-powered monster is an homage to the six built by Aston Martin’s 1959 Le Mans winner Carroll Shelby, whose Shelby American concern in California clothed the Surrey based company’s underpinnings in an aerodynamic body by Peter Brock. The cars fulfilled Shelby’s quest to win the 1965 International GT Championship with drivers of the calibre of Dan Gurney and Bob Bondurant of race school fame.
On a track which favours grunt on the straights and agility in the corners, where apex speeds are magnified to advantage, a class squabble could ensue with two 26R competition spec Lotus Elans in the mix. Staffordshire’s Connor Kay and Cheshire golf professional James Hughes - rivals in the Midget & Sprite Challenge club racing series - join forces on their GTSCC debut.
The race incorporates two other nuances, for Sports Racing and Touring Cars, bringing a David versus Goliath quality to the grid. The storied Lister marque from Cambridge is honoured by the rumbustious Chevrolet-powered ‘Knobbly’ of vintage Bentley racers Richard Hudson and Stuart Morley. Meanwhile, Sparkhill, Birmingham tuning wizard Ralph Broad’s most creative era is represented by the rare Mini Cooper S-derived Broadspeed GTS coupe, raced by John Fitzpatrick in the1960s, with father and daughter Richard and Alice Locke up.
The 2026 GT & Sports Car Cup, an invitation series promoted by Automobiles Historiques, runs over four races. Future events are: Saturday, June 27, ANGLESEY CIRCUIT; Saturday, September 12, CASTLE COMBE AUTUMN CLASSIC and October 30-November 1, ALGARVE CLASSIC FESTIVAL, Portimao, Portugal. Contact Vanessa now to secure your place on the grid in its 20th season.
