How the 2025 national racing champions were crowned

2 Seas rules the British GT3 waves

Considering there were four cars in mathematical contention for the British GT title on the final day, the 2025 campaign was actually fairly one-sided. Charles Dawson and Kiern Jewiss were crowned overall champions for the first time with the 2 Seas Mercedes squad, which won all but four races to also seal teams’ spoils.

But, ahead of the season, not many would have predicted that outcome. Jewiss was set for his series debut after a 2024 sabbatical, while Dawson was stepping up to GT3 as reigning British GT4 pro-am champion.

Not much was expected, Dawson assumed it would be a “learning year” and outsiders instead focused on crews with a factory driver. That all went out of the window after qualifying at the Donington Park opener though, as the Merc pair stormed to pole, with Dawson topping the amateur session by seven tenths.

Victory was theirs the following day and paddock grumblings started, pointing out this was a silver-bronze pairing per the FIA gradings, and such a duo doesn’t often challenge for wins against crews that boast a professional with a gold or platinum licence.

The #42 Mercedes was thus given 30kg of extra ballast for round two at Silverstone after exceeding expectations. “We started off with an absolute bang, probably too much of a bang,” says Dawson, who then claimed the pair was “rocked” by the added weight.

Dawson and Jewiss won the title in what the former reckoned was going to be a “learning year”

Photo by: JEP

That was evident in qualifying at Silverstone as they only mustered seventh. But, due to a stop-start contest where strategy was king, Dawson/Jewiss took second and scored maximum points .

The added weight was reduced to 25kg from round three, but the pair still felt aggrieved and a three-race podium-less streak brought others into play. Giacomo Petrobelli/Jonny Adam (Blackthorn Aston Martin), Kevin Tse/Maximilian Gotz (2 Seas Mercedes) and Morgan Tillbrook/Marvin Kirchhofer (Optimum McLaren) were all now in with a shout of glory.

But Dawson/Jewiss suddenly got their act together again for the next three races, as two victories gave them a 28.5-36.5-point cushion over the three rival crews heading into the Donington finale, where 37.5 were available. Dawson/Jewiss finished fourth that day, resulting in their crowning moment.

Ninovic is wizard of GB3’s Oz pack

Even Formula Regional ace Slater had no answer to Ninovic at Brands Hatch

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Alex Ninovic became one of GB3’s most dominant champions as the series entered a new era in 2025. The Rodin driver tamed the radical new Tatuus MSV GB3-025 car better than the rest, his record-equalling 10 poles and nine victories helping him wrap up the title with a round to spare.

Such superiority hadn’t looked likely at round one, where the Australian racer made a low-key start and Freddie Slater – contesting a partial campaign for Hillspeed – enjoyed a huge advantage.

Ninovic took a win at each of the next three events to lead the standings when the season reached its halfway point in Hungary, and from there he was almost untouchable. Across his next 10 starts he took six more victories, and even the returning Slater had no answer to his pace at Brands Hatch.

“I knew he had something special,” says Rodin’s GB3 team manager Ricky Taylor. “It all came [together] in Hungary, and since then he took off. He’s the complete package: very strong-minded, very calm.”

Ninovic described as having “something special” by his Rodin team boss

Photo by: JEP

Ninovic will remain at Rodin in 2026 for a sideways move to Formula Regional Europe. “I wasn’t expecting [this] level of performance,” he admits.

“I thought we would be at the front based on testing. I put it down to the training I did, not feeling too pressured and just going out and doing my best.”

In contrast, it proved a tough graduation for last year’s British F4 dominator Deagen Fairclough. A chassis issue at Silverstone and a qualifying incident at Spa left the Hitech driver on the back foot, but he also struggled to adapt to the handling traits of the new car.

He ended strongly with his first win at Monza, but was pipped to runner-up in the table by Patrick Heuzenroeder, who also scored a solitary triumph for series debutant Xcel.

Ninovic’s team-mates had contrasting fortunes. Gianmarco Pradel missed out on making it an all-Australian top three,  while Abbi Pulling was unable to replicate the form that enabled her to outqualify Ninovic on her GB3 bow. A maiden podium at Brands helped her climb into the top 10 by the season’s end.

Another close Carrera Cup finale

Rackstraw and Martin had a ferocious Silverstone fight

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Any championship where the top pair are separated by just two points was clearly an interesting one. And this year’s Porsche Carrera Cup GB title battle certainly featured constant twists and turns.

Last year’s decider was a four-way thriller but, from mid-season, it was evident it would be a two-horse race this time. George Gamble’s title defence never really got going, his Century team-mate Angus Whiteside’s early points lead proved brief and Porsche GB Junior James Wallis (JTR) was unable to push on from scoring his first win in the category’s 400th race at Snetterton. That just left Andrew Rackstraw and Will Martin, who trod different paths to the showdown.

Martin (Eden Motorsport) was the perennial frontrunner eager to avenge his defeat 12 months ago when he spun out at the finale. Rackstraw, in contrast, grew up in South Africa but “left everything behind” to move to the other side of the world to compete in Porsches and Formula Ford last year. He joined Century this term, determined to improve upon eighth in 2024.

“I spent my first year learning the car, how to drive it and what makes it fast,” Rackstraw explains. “Second year we focused on consistency.”

The Donington Park curtain-raiser gave a taste of what was in store. Martin dominated the opener but clashed with Sid Smith in race two as Rackstraw prevailed. Rackstraw continued his point-scoring from there, while Martin endured further scrapes at Knockhill and Silverstone that left him with a 20-point deduction to his final total. A deduction that proved critical.

“To win a championship you do need a bit of luck,” confesses Rackstraw. “Will definitely had the pace but those penalty points did bite him in the end and that was something I was focused on. I knew I couldn’t afford any 50/50 moves.”

Having said that, there was some frantic battling between the protagonists at Silverstone and Brands Hatch, with Rackstraw’s two fourths in Kent being just enough for him to prevail.

“If I lost one or two positions, I may not have won – I think I’ve aged about 10 years, but I’ve loved it,” admits the conqueror, who ensured it was another memorable campaign.

Brown makes history with second GT4 crown

There were plenty of twists in fight between Optimum (left) and Century

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The 2025 British GT4 campaign was one of domination between two crews, neither of which were actually the fastest in the class. Mahiki went quickest in three of the opening four qualifying sessions, but failed to collect any wins due to a series of operational or mechanical failures.

It even ditched its Lotus Emiras for Ginetta G56s for round four, but it was more of the same with four poles but no victories. Instead, the championship was fought between Marc Warren/Jack Brown (Optimum McLaren) and Ravi Ramyead/Charlie Robertson (Century BMW) who, between them, won all-but one race.

The Optimum pair took first blood by triumphing in the Donington Park opener, before Ramyead/Robertson struck back with Silverstone victory. It was then thought the title was practically sealed at the following Oulton Park event, as Warren/Brown won both races while their rivals failed to score due to a crash in the first contest that ended their weekend.

The McLaren pair consequently held a 50-point lead, but actually headed into the Donington finale behind. That’s because Ramyead/Robertson won two of the next three races after Oulton, before finishing second to Harry George/Luca Hopkinson (McLaren) at the penultimate Brands Hatch round. It was that weekend where Warren crashed out on lap one, yet all was forgotten when he and Brown won the finale to clinch the spoils, making Brown the first two-time GT4 champion.

Dutch Ginetta Junior win

Red Bull protege Coronel made a strong start to the Ginetta season

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Red Bull joined the Ginetta Junior grid for the first time in 2025 in collaboration with R Racing, and one of its drivers took the title in style.

Rocco Coronel, the latest protege of the energy drinks firm, was the class of the field. Seven straight early-season victories left the Dutch teenager with a huge lead and, after adding a further four triumphs, he took the title with two races to spare.

In a series known for close, elbows-out racing, Coronel’s measured approach stood out, often coming from behind to win with calm and calculated overtakes. In contrast, Red Bull’s other junior Scott Kin Lindblom showed flashes of promise, but too often got caught up in incidents.

Fellow R Racing stablemate Alfie Slater, brother of 2023 champion Freddie, won the year’s opening race, but was unable to reproduce that form often enough.

Instead, it was scholarship winner Fred Green who led the pursuit of Coronel for Elite Motorsport. He built on his solid start to the campaign with an impressive run of seven victories from the final nine races to finish second in the standings by a sizeable 215-point margin to the rest.

Bansal comes from behind for GB4 success

Bansal, Guinchard (49) and Phelps (35) had an entertaining scrap for GB4 glory

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GB4 boasted its biggest-ever grid in 2025, and it had a title battle to match. The introduction of the Tatuus MSV GB4-025 – a detuned version of GB3’s old challenger – resulted in a record 25-car entry.

The competition at the front also proved more open than ever before, as Ary Bansal came from behind to snatch the crown at the Donington Park decider following a fight with his Elite team-mate Isaac Phelps and Hillspeed’s Daniel Guinchard.

Former Mercedes junior Guinchard only won twice upon his return from 18 months on the sidelines, but a consistent campaign helped him lead the standings until the final round, only for things to cruelly unravel for him.

Scoring four victories each, Bansal and Phelps took points off each other across the year. Phelps had the better one-lap pace, and his fifth and six poles at the season finale put him within touching distance of glory. But an opening-lap collision with Guinchard in race one turned the championship on its head.

Bansal, meanwhile, believed his hopes were over after a difficult qualifying at Donington, but he took full advantage of his rivals’ misfortune with three stirring comeback drives to seal the title.

The Indian racer believes his double victory halfway through the year at Snetterton was the turning point. “That was the best moment,” he states. “I closed the gap to Guinchard and showed how good my pace was that weekend.”

McLaughlin Masters F4

Hitech had another British F4 champion on its books this year – Fionn McLaughlin

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The motorsport world has become accustomed to seeing Red Bull-liveried machines dominating. But there was no guarantee its latest single-seater protege, car racing rookie Fionn McLaughlin, would add to that success considering this year’s British Formula 4 entry was packed with stars of Ginetta Junior and sophomores eager to put their knowledge to use.

However, Irishman McLaughlin was not your typical rookie. As well as attracting Red Bull’s support and finishing third in the pre-season Formula Winter Series, he was also 17 – a couple of years older than many of his peers. “With his age, the maturity and the work ethic was there, which I think really helped him,” says Hitech team manager Dominic Stott.

Yes, there was some inexperienced exuberance from McLaughlin on occasion, but his pace and racecraft were undeniable. He scored his first win at round three at Snetterton and grew in confidence, while key rival Martin Molnar (Virtuosi) appeared to succumb a tad to title-fighting pressure.

“Fionn will admit he made probably more mistakes than he wanted to but, when there were mistakes, he bounced back,” adds Stott. “Winning as a rookie is no mean feat.”

Ovenden bakes Mini win

Consistent scoring helped Ovenden to Mini Challenge crown

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After two events, it seemed the destiny of the Mini Challenge title was only heading in one direction. Jamie Osborne crushed the opposition during those weekends to build a 64-point lead, having achieved five victories from six races. But motorsport is full of twists and turns and the NAPA driver failed to win again for the rest of the year.

Osborne was dealt some sizeable misfortune both on and off the track. Fuel system woes in qualifying at Oulton Park left him starting at the back and then he was forced onto the sidelines for the final two events on medical grounds.

All of this benefited Excelr8’s Tom Ovenden. The 2023 Cooper winner had trimmed Osborne’s advantage thanks to his metronomic point-scoring and picked up the pieces when his rival’s health scare intervened. But take nothing away from Ovenden, to score strong points in every race across a season in an unpredictable series like Mini Challenge is impressive.

“Going into Brands, people were saying, ‘You’ve got it’, but it’s very easy to say that,” reflects Ovenden. “Two weeks ahead, that [70-point] gap just kept getting smaller and smaller in my head.” Yet Ovenden kept his cool, helped by Osborne’s team-mate Lewis Selby having a tough finale.

Sting in Cayman tail for Porsche champ Bradshaw

There was a nervy Sprint Challenge finish for Bradshaw at Brands Hatch

Photo by: Porsche

Of all the ways to miss out on a title, it would have been among the more embarrassing. Toro Verde driver Tom Bradshaw had been the class of the Porsche Sprint Challenge GB field for much of the year but a tough Silverstone event – which included a hefty startline shunt in the opener, where he was an innocent party – left him under a little more pressure than expected at the Brands Hatch finale.

The deciding contest should have been fairly straightforward for the experienced sportscar and historics racer: he simply needed to finish. But he managed to jump the start – although avoided a penalty because he was so far back in his grid box, he was able to stop his Cayman before rolling over the line – and then had a miserable ‘proper’ launch that left him being “walloped” into Paddock Hill Bend. Cue Bradshaw nursing a damaged car to the finish.

“It’s rare you ever get the perfect season,” admits Bradshaw, who was penalised for being a couple of inches over his grid box at Oulton Park. “I felt really calm and collected and the lights came on and I just had a momentary lapse and jumped the start. Luckily, my poor parking pulled me out of the mire.”

Bradshaw’s blunders were compounded by chief rival Joe Marshall having a belting weekend. The Team Parker racer won all three Brands bouts but ultimately ended up five points short of stealing Bradshaw’s glory.

Reporting by Ed Hardy, Stephen Lickorish and Steve Whitfield

This article is one of many in the monthly Autosport magazine. For more premium content, take a look at the December 2025 issue and subscribe today. 

Porsche Carrera Cup GB runner-up Martin (l) was in a hurry to pounce at Brands Hatch

Photo by: JEP