+ Optimum’s McLaren beats Century and Paradine BMWs
+ Innovation triumph on GT4 debut with Holland and Simpson
+ Result: 2026 Silverstone 500
Optimum’s strategic masterstroke helped Yasser Shahin and Garnet Patterson claim a surprise Silverstone 500 win in British GT’s blue riband season opener, while Innovation and Hadley Simpson – as well as Thomas Holland – converted pole position into GT4 victory on their series debuts.
In terms of pure pace, the three-hour encounter should have been won by Darren Leung and Dan Harper who controlled the race from pole position for the first two-and-a-half hours. But a combination of Safety Car timing and Optimum’s pitstop gamble ultimately restricted Paradine’s BMW to third overall behind another M4: Century’s example shared by Jonathon Beeson and Charles Clark.
As well as finishing second, the Silver-Am duo also lead GT3’s early standings by dint of Shahin and Patterson’s guest entry status. However, their overall victory will go down as the first for an Australian since Charlie Cox won at Croft in September 1997.
Further back, Holland and Simpson converted GT4 pole position into victory over MK Racing’s Aston Martin of Jessica Hawkins and Will Orton, while the Optimum McLaren shared by Luca Hopkinson and Josh Stanton completed a top three covered by 1.8s. It was the first time in two years that a team other than Century or Optimum had won the class, as well as Ginetta’s first victory since 2023.
Another G56 was also firmly in contention before unfortunate pitstop and Safety Car timing restricted Luke Shaw and Jack Mitchell to fifth overall. However, Toro Verde’s duo did at least celebrate winning the Pro-Am class.
GT3: to follow
GT4: Innovation takes its chance
A controlled drive coupled with reactive strategy around the Safety Car periods helped Holland and Simpson score a debut victory for Innovation Racing.
While Holland and Simpson started on pole and were perhaps pre-race favourites aboard the #74 Ginetta, the road to victory in the 500 is rarely a straightforward one and both the drivers and team had some key calls to make across a race that featured five caution periods that threatened to turn strategy into a lottery.
Holland took the start but soon found himself under pressure from Jamie Orton’s MK Racing Aston Martin, which blew past to lead on the opening lap. However, Holland continued to tail the Vantage before re-taking the lead down the Wellington Straight on lap seven.
From there he pulled a near three-second gap by the time the race’s second caution period provided an ideal window to hand over to Simpson. The leading pack pitted as one, with Orton and Shaw in the Toro Verde GT G56 following Holland in.
Shaw and Mitchell had proved the biggest threat to Innovation in qualifying, and Mitchell backed that up in the second stint by working his way past Hawkins in the MK car before hauling in Simpson and making a fine pass out of Aintree to lead. The decision to pit early in favour of running Mitchell long later would prove costly, however, when the driver change at half distance under green flag conditions took longer than their rivals’ subsequent stops during the third caution period, which scuppered the chance of an outright win.
By contrast Innovation’s second well-timed stop got #74 back out into a lead it would never lose. Holland built a five-second gap back to the MK Aston before swapping with Simpson for the final time under yet another convenient Full Course Yellow period in the final 30 minutes.
The upshot of that late Safety Car was the top three GT4 contenders restarting the final sprint to the flag covered by fractions. Approaching the final lap, Simpson lead both Hawkins and Stanton’s Optimum McLaren by less than a second but was never seriously challenged en route to victory.
Stanton and Hopkinson completed the podium after a fine drive that included Stanton fending off a very late challenge from the Jack Collins/Branden Templeton Century BMW, which itself finished less than four seconds behind the overall winner and made it as many different brands inside the top four.
While the overall strategy failed to deliver the victory their pace deserved, Shaw and Mitchell still secured the Pro-Am glory in fifth overall ahead of John Hartshorne and Ronan Pearson’s GBR Stratton Aston Martin, and Ernie Graham and Colin Turkington who overcame a mid-race drive-through to score a class podium for WSR Flexifly on its GT racing debut.
Next up it’s Oulton Park where British GT’s three-hour format gives way to a pair of 60-minute races over the Bank Holiday weekend of May 23 & 25.
