The key moments from British GT's Silverstone opener

The three-hour Silverstone 500 kicked off the 2026 British GT campaign over the weekend and as ever, it was an unpredictable contest defined by strategy.

That is a tale of old for the championship’s blue-riband event, which began an eight-race season with Oulton Park, Spa, Snetterton, Donington Park and Brands Hatch still to come. 

So, here are five key points from the season opener. 

Heartache for Leung/Harper after missing out on record-breaking win

Darren Leung and Dan Harper are one of British GT’s biggest success stories. The 2023 series champions are now respectively winning races in the World Endurance Championship and IMSA, but in spite of glory across the globe, the pair still appreciate their ‘home competition’.

So much so, since their last full campaign in 2023, the pair have returned each year for Silverstone and even tasted victory last season. The goal was therefore set: to edge one clear of Sandy Mitchell as the only drivers to have won the 500 thrice, having first done so during their title-winning season.

“We’re here to win,” said Leung, driving the Paradine Competition BMW GT3. “Don’t care about anything else. It’s our home championship, it’s our home race, me and Dan are both members of the BRDC, it’s our chance to just have a little bit of a home legacy.”

Safety car timings both aided and hurt Leung and Harper in their bid for a third Silverstone 500 win

Photo by: JEP

That came after a dominant pole of 0.638s and their form continued into the race as after one hour, second-placed Ben Barnicoat (Optimum McLaren) trailed Harper by 7.7s.

But the McLaren was soon no longer a problem, as it made its second of three mandatory pitstops just before conditions went yellow following a crash in GT4 at the halfway point. “Couldn’t have happened at a better time,” said Harper of the intervention, revealing the team was already set to pit.

So considering the Northern Irishman had handed Leung an approximate 15s lead, everybody was now looking at the Paradine BMW as a sure bet for victory. But then it suddenly started to change with 73 minutes remaining when an engine failure caused Rob Collard/Hugo Cook (Barwell Lamborghini) to retire from second, thus prompting a safety car.

Paradine opted to not pit - sticking to its original strategy to prevent Leung from exceeding the total driver stint time of 1h40m - whereas the sister Optimum of Yasser Shahin and Garnet Patterson did from 11th.

That was the key to its unlikely victory and the free pitstop put the McLaren first once the majority made their final change under green conditions with approximately 45 minutes left, as Shahin and Patterson eventually claimed their maiden series victory by 1.438s. 

“What a day,” reacted Patterson. “We struggled all day with the car, so to get the win at the Silverstone 500 with what we’ve had today is pretty mega. Got a bit lucky with the strategy, but you create your own luck.”

Strategy and luck favoured the Optimum McLaren squad on their way to victory

Photo by: JEP

Paradine didn’t even finish runner-up though, instead falling to third as Jonathon Beeson and Charles Clark (Century BMW) ended up second. In their case, Beeson went long in the third stint and handed over to Clark when there was another FCY intervention with 30 minutes left.

“We were quick enough to win, we were in a comfortable position, but the safety cars, we know that it can change a race completely,” said Harper. “Just disappointing obviously, we came here to win and it didn’t happen.” 

British GT has a new star

There was a lot of change for 2026, as five factory drivers - Mitchell, Jonny Adam, Maximilian Gotz, Marvin Kirchhofer and Sven Muller - all went onto pastures new.

But British GT3 debutant Barnicoat, who replaced Kirchhofer as Morgan Tillbrook’s co-driver at Optimum, is certainly capable of filling that void after an incredible showing at Silverstone. 

The 29-year-old, mostly known for winning the IMSA GTD Pro title in 2023, first topped the Pro qualifying session and although Tillbrook suffered a messy start dropping from second to sixth, Barnicoat put the duo back into contention after setting continuous fastest laps to regain second around the hour mark. 

“You sometimes have stints as drivers where the car feels awesome, you’re in your happy place,” said Barnicoat. “I was overtaking cars, so I’m out there feeling good. You just have those times when it all clicks and today was certainly one.”

Barnicoat demonstrated his talents but the team were another to be denied by strategy and safety car timings

Photo by: JEP

It set up a potentially enthralling final stint between him and Harper for victory, but that wasn’t to be due to Optimum picking the wrong strategy for its #77 McLaren. Barnicoat ended his first stint after 1h17m with the hope of having more time at the end, but a GT4 crash caused a yellow flag just minutes later giving others a cheap driver change.

So that all-but ended the hopes for Tillbrook and Barnicoat, who later on even had to serve a one-second stop-go penalty for too short of a change. That just piled on the misery and they ultimately finished seventh, but that shouldn’t distract from how mega of a performance Barnicoat displayed.

“I’d rather have a trophy and probably say my stint was a bit more average, but it is what it is. You’ve got to take what you can,” said the two-time Autosport young driver finalist, who was the only racer to go sub-1m58s. 

Engine blow for pre-season favourites 

Picking a pre-season title favourite in British GT is often incredibly difficult, even more so when there’s been various changes on the grid as is the case in 2026. But one pairing which stood out heading into this year was Collard and Cook, considering they were also co-drivers last season and both have their own credentials. 

Collard is a two-time series champion - 2020 and 2024 - and widely regarded as British GT’s best bronze-graded driver, while 21-year-old Cook is a rising star who also races across Europe. On top of that, they race for series stalwart Barwell which is consistently at the front. 

So it was no surprise to see them up there in qualifying, taking third on the grid, before constantly featuring inside the top three during the race. But then an uncharacteristic reliability issue for the Huracan put the pair out with Collard and Cook rueing the 20+ points they had just lost.

Engine failure but Collard and Cook out of action

Photo by: JEP

“Gutted, to be honest, it started in my stint, I felt something weird with the car, but you can’t stop and have a look so we kept going. But it’s an engine failure,” said Cook, with the retirement eventually occurring when Collard was in the car.

Horror start to title defence for 2 Seas

It was also a poor start to the season for 2 Seas Mercedes, who dominated the 2025 campaign by winning five of nine races, with Charles Dawson and Kiern Jewiss taking the drivers’ title. 

Although the pair will not contest the full 2026 campaign, instead focusing on GT World Challenge Europe, they did return to Silverstone as a one-off entry. Everything started positively qualifying fourth, but their race was effectively over by Copse at Turn 1 as team-mate Kevin Tse went into the side of Dawson causing both Mercedes cars to go off. 

Tse, whose co-driver is Ben Green, retired on the spot with suspension damage whereas the #1 Mercedes attempted to keep going but everybody knew its fate: Dawson/Jewiss completed 16 more laps before ending the day.

Yet 2 Seas does at least have something for its Silverstone showing as its third Mercedes, driven by Andrew Gilbert and Aaron Walker, finished eighth.

Solid British GT debut for Turkington

Elsewhere in GT4, four-time BTCC champion Colin Turkington made his British GT debut alongside fellow debutant Ernie Graham aboard the West Surrey Racing BMW. Not much was expected of the pairing considering they were both new to endurance competition and that was pretty much witnessed in qualifying when they took next-to-last on the GT4 grid.

Graham held that position until the first driver change and from there, Turkington displayed his class by fighting up to third in-class amid all the chaos with yellow flags and safety cars. But then that hard work was undone when the #61 BMW received a drivethrough penalty because Graham exceeded the yellow flag 80kph speed limit.

Turkington's British GT debut was a solid outing, even if a penalty denied his WSR squad from fighting at the front

Photo by: JEP

WSR ultimately finished seventh overall in GT4 and Turkington said: “The only slip up was in Ernie’s second stint. He didn’t get his comms lead into the helmet, so we had no communication with him.

“I think just being slightly out of sorts, that may have led to the slight overspeeding onto FCY. Potentially could have finished higher up, but the main aim was to try and finish the race.”

GT4 was instead won by Thomas Holland/Hadley Simpson (Innovation Racing Ginetta), with Will Orton/Jessica Hawkins (MK Racing Aston Martin) and Luca Hopkinson/Josh Stanton (Optimum McLaren) completing the podium.