Birch’s support of the 2025 British GT Championship coverage with dailysportscar.com continued over the May Bank Holiday weekend at Cheshire’s Oulton Park circuit where newshound Mo Rehman was on site for another exciting event.
The days may be getting longer as summer approaches, but in the British GT Championship, the races are getting shorter! Teams and drivers were in action over the long weekend for the first sprint rounds of the 2025 season, which, as ever, produced plenty of thrills and spills.
Heading into the weekend, the big question on everyone in the paddock's lips centred around 2 Seas Motorsport's Charles Dawson and Kiern Jewiss. More specifically, could anyone find a way to beat them after they picked up maximum points in the races at Donington and Silverstone?
The short answer was: "Yes!" The title hopefuls in the #42 Mercedes ended up finishing ninth and 11th in the two races on the tight, twisty Cheshire circuit on Monday. This left the door open for new contenders to emerge.
In Race 1, Leatherhead-based Barwell Motorsport enjoyed a return to form, with Hugo Cook and his teammate Rob Collard scoring their first win together. It was also the team's ninth win at the circuit, which has always suited the characteristics of the Huracán GT3.
It wasn't an easy ride for Barwell's winning duo, though, as Cook was forced to soak up pressure for most of his stint from Maxi Götz behind, who finished second in 2 Seas' sister Mercedes that he shares with Kevin Tse. The pair finished under a second apart, and 2.5 clear of the Blackthorn Aston Martin driven by Giacomo Petrobelli and Jonny Adam.
Götz and Tse's impressive run then continued later in the day as, in tricky, changeable conditions, which prompted the teams to gamble on tyre choice, the pair would claim their first win of the campaign.
From pole on wet tyres, the duo proved unstoppable. Mercedes factory driver Götz managed to pull a seven-second gap after fending off Barwell's Sandy Mitchell and Team Parker's Sven Müller at the start, before Tse finished the job after the round of stops.
Behind, the pack shuffled significantly as the conditions evolved and the track dried. Orange Racing's McLaren took second, while Bridger Motorsport's NSX went on an almighty run from 14th to third after making the switch to slicks at the right time.
Blackthorn's Aston narrowly missed out on a podium and took fourth, and the Race 1 winning Barwell Lamborghini ended up 10th.
The title battle has tightened up as a result, though 2 Seas remains in control. Dawson and Jewiss still lead, but the margin is just 10 points over their teammates Götz and Tse.
The GT4 standings, meanwhile, have been blown wide open after a perfect weekend for Optimum Motorsport's Jack Brown and Marc Warren and a disastrous one for Century Motorsport's Ravi Ramyead and Charlie Robertson.
Going into the weekend, the two crews were level on points at the top. Now they are separated by 51. Warren and Brown were masterful, winning both races in their McLaren Artura GT4, on a day when Ramyead and Robertson crashed out of Race 1 and withdrew from the meeting, scoring zero points. There are still five races left to run, but it felt like a crushing blow for Century's hopefuls.
Next up on the schedule is the annual 'away day' to Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium on June 21-22, where the teams will tackle the third Endurance race of the year on the most technical, punishing circuit of the season.
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