Archie Clark has extended his dream start to the 2025 Protyre Motorsport Ginetta GT Championship season with a brilliant double victory across a pair of 25-minute sprint races at Silverstone (26/27 April).
Qualifying
The weekend began with an ultra-competitive qualifying session, which saw the top ten drivers split by less than half a second around the 3.66-mile Grand Prix circuit. Topping the timesheets was Hadley Simpson (Xentek Motorsport) for his first pole position in Ginetta racing.
Fellow PRO class runner Cameron Pratt-Thompson (SVG Motorsport) secured a front-row start alongside him, with Nick White (Raceway Motorsport) finishing as the quickest PRO AM contender in third. The fastest AM meanwhile was Ali Juffali (Elite Motorsport) in 11th overall.
Race One
Simpson perfectly executed the rolling start to lead away from pole position at the start and a swift opening lap netted him an early 1.6 second lead. Pratt-Thompson slotted into second place, with Clark (MDD Racing) grabbing third from Nick White through Copse for the first time.
Pratt-Thompson started edging closer to Simpson in the early laps, but Clark stuck with him and went on to grab second place through The Loop on lap four. Their battle allowed Simpson to extend his lead back to 1.5 seconds, but Clark was soon hunting him down.
The Ginetta Junior graduate posted the fastest lap of the race as he latched onto Simpson’s tail and a good move through Club corner netted him the lead on the penultimate lap. Simpson and Pratt-Thompson went on to complete the PRO podium alongside him.
Nick White secured the PRO AM class win in fourth overall, but he had to work hard for the success. Harry Gamble (Elite Motorsport) pressured him throughout the race and briefly nosed ahead over the start-finish line late on, but White fended him off for the class spoils.
Reigning PRO champion Mckenzie Douglass (Fox Motorsport) kicked off his title defence with a battling drive forward to sixth overall. He pulled off a last lap move on Robert Cronin (Elite Motorsport) down the Wellington Straight, with Mike Taylor (Triple M Motorsport) following him through into Brooklands.
Taylor therefore came home seventh as he completed the PRO AM podium. Cronin was next up ahead of fellow PRO contender Jack Collins (E3 Sport), who had enjoyed some good wheel-to-wheel action with Taylor and AM class victor Luke Shaw (Raceway Motorsport) in the early stages.
Shaw completed the top ten overall ahead of his closest AM rival Juffali. Behind Alex Duncan (Xentek Motorsport), Carl Garnett (Breakell Racing) completed the AM class podium after pulling off a late move on Peter Mangion (Elite Motorsport), with Colin White (CWS Engineering) fifth in class.
Race Two
Clark started Sunday’s race from pole position courtesy of setting the best ‘second fastest time’ in qualifying. As he converted pole into the race lead off the rolling start ahead of Simpson, early changes behind saw Nick White and Douglass work their way past Cronin.
Douglass went on to pass White for third at Vale, with Gamble also picking him off before the end of the opening lap to secure the PRO AM lead. Cronin meanwhile dropped back to sixth and went on to swap places back and forth with Collins over the next couple of laps.
At the front, the top two traded fastest laps through the race. Simpson remained within a second throughout but couldn’t get close enough to force a move, with Clark making it a perfect record of four wins from four races to start his maiden GT Championship season.
Douglass picked up his first podium of the season in third, with Gamble securing the PRO AM honours in fourth overall. A wide moment for White at Aintree on lap eight allowed Cronin through to grab fifth, before Collins pulled off a last lap move on White at Stowe to complete the top six.
Pratt-Thompson was sixth of the PRO contenders in eighth overall ahead of Duncan, who secured his first Ginetta podium with third in PRO AM. He benefitted from Taylor losing ground on the opening lap, with the reigning GT Academy rookie champion recovering to tenth.
Juffalli ended Shaw’s 100% winning start in the AM class with his maiden victory, whilst Garnett fended off early pressure from Colin White to secure his second podium of the weekend. James Townsend (SVG Motorsport), Oliver Fordham (Fox Motorsport), Emma Tomlinson (DTO Motorsport) and Amy Tomlinson (Raceway Motorsport) completed the finishers.
Full race results can be found at https://www.tsl-timing.com/event/251705
Both races can be watched back at www.youtube.com/user/ginettatv
The Protyre Motorsport Ginetta GT Championship is next on track over the Spring Bank Holiday weekend (24-26 May) at Oulton Park.
