British GT & Support, Brands Hatch: Transmission's Top 20: The Champions

One garage, two sides: Teammates; rivals; both. Only one could win.

What had been billed as ‘The Battle of Brands’ soon became the ‘Battle of Barwell’ as Mark Lemmer’s squad of Lamborghinis were pitched into last weekend’s title fight for British GT’s GT3 crown. In the red corner were father and son pairing Rob & Ricky Collard; in the blue was Rob Collard’s former pro partner Sandy Mitchell, now sharing driving duties with Dextra’s Alex Martin.

It’s not the first time that the two young pro’s have gone head-to-head. Both Ricky Collard and Mitchell were in Formula 4’s Class of 2015 (MSA Formula). Mitchell won twice but it was Collard who starred, taking six wins and seven podiums in the title race. Nevertheless, he had to settle for the runner-up spot that year, edged to P1 by a young graduate from Ginetta Junior … Lando Norris. Mitchell moved swiftly into endurance racing and GTs. Collard soon followed, but a two-year hiatus in the BTCC took the momentum out of his trajectory. Mitchell, on the other hand, was already firmly established at Barwell.

Both Collards and Martin have endured bruising touring car careers but have since found renewal behind the wheel of the V10 Huracan. All season long, their two cars have amassed an extraordinary collection of points and pots, arriving at Brands Hatch having won five of the eight rounds between them. Indeed, only at Silverstone did neither finish on the podium, the blue car’s race ending prematurely with a heavy crash into the Copse Corner barrier. It can’t be called a turning point as this was only race 3 of 9, but the points lost that day by Martin & Mitchell could not be recovered, leaving them facing help from the gods to overturn the deficit to the Collards.

Of course, there’s much at stake in GT4 too. Wins here can cement much needed backing as ‘silvers’ fight for career progression, and this year, an extraordinary battle between three young pairings emerged. Leading the way were Forsetti’s Mikey Porter & Jamie Day in the Aston Martin Vantage, but only 3.5 points separated them and Optimum’s Jack Brown & Zac Meakin in the Artura. Then came Charles Dawson & Seb Morris in Team Parker’s Mercedes-AMG GT; they were only 7.5 points adrift and the first of the Pro-Am runners. Brown & Meakin were the most winning, yet also the most luckless. The second Forsetti car of Marc Warren & Will Orton was also a contender, but the form books suggested that it was going to come down to a close-run thing between the top three.

Championships were also at stake in all the support series’ too. Louis Sharp’s emergence as one of the brightest young single-seater talents has continued at pace in GB3, whilst much focus is always given to the youngest stars of all, Ginetta’s Juniors.

Here are 20 of our favourite images from this title-winning weekend, celebrating all those crowned after a remarkable season of racing.

All images by Howard Fielding & Steve Hindle