Smith soars to Snetterton double as championship fights heat up
Mark Smith carried on his remarkable run of form in the 2025 GT Cup Championship as he took a pair of wins on the opening day of the Snetterton Showdown. Championship battles remain finely poised ahead of what will be a thrilling season finale tomorrow (Sunday 12 October).
The Paddock Motorsport racer swept the board in GT3, while Overall title contenders Fraser Fenwick and Charlotte Gilbert put themselves in prime position for glory with a brace of wins in GTC.
GTH went the way of Innovation Racing as ESports World Champion Luke Bennett combined with Hadley Simpson to power their Ginetta to a pair of wins. Meanwhile, GT Cup debutants Jamie Caudle and Charlie Digby cleaned up in GTA, with two wins and pole in their Triple M Motorsport Ginetta Supercup.
Qualifying
Grey skies and cool conditions greeted the field as October's season finale got underway with a thrilling pair of qualifying sessions.
Overall pole, and GT3 honours, went to the man aiming to leave Snetterton with the Group title come Sunday - Mark Smith. The Paddock Motorsport racer was on fine form as he powered the black-and-pink McLaren 720S GT3 Evo to the top of the charts early in the session, and then kept improving his time on nearly every tour, finishing the session with a 1m47.389s effort.
Behind him was GTC leader, and one of our overall title challengers, Fraser Fenwick. The Topcats driver extracted every last tenth of out of his Lamborghini Super Trofeo as he got amongst the GT3 contenders with a front-row start.
GTH proved to be a battle of the Ginetta G56s as Innovation Racing's Bennett powered up to provisional pole early in the session, but SVG's Owen Hizzey was in the groove and charging up the field. His penultimate lap put him top but was deleted for track limits. Undeterred, he went even faster and as the chequered flag went out, he snatched pole.
Jamie Caudle gave Ginetta another pole as he took the Triple M Motorsport machine to the top of the GTA standings, just squeezing ahead of Ian Astley in the SVG BMW M4.
Sprint Race
The weekend's first race action was another demonstration by Smith as he led into the first corner uncontested and then extended his advantage every lap.
Peter Erceg took a well-earned second in Group as he kept his cool and finally found a chink in Darren Kell's armour to squeeze ahead in the closing stages of a race where Kell's Track Focused McLaren seemed double the width of anything else on track.
Taking a fabulous second overall, and winning GTC, was Fenwick. The Topcats racer did his overall title charge - alongside Charlotte Gilbert - no harm at all as he took maximum points in a race where his rivals couldn't match his result.
It was a Lamborghini top three in GTC as Frank Morris took second for JMH, while Jack Gadd pulled off some masterful displays of overtaking to take the last spot in the second of the Topcats Super Trofeos.
GTH's title battle swung the way of the #30 Innovation Racing Ginetta, as Hadley Simpson put in the defensive performance of his life to keep fellow title contender Owen Hizzey behind him. The pair looked like there was an invisible rope keeping them tied together, and try as he might, Hizzey couldn't find any way through Simpson's defence. Third went to Archie Clark in the Feathers Motorsport Aston Martin.
Jamie Caudle took a Group win on debut as the Triple M Motorsport racer pulled off a perfect race to take the GTA honours ahead of Neil Wallace, who was fortunate the race wasn't one lap longer as Brent Millage was all over the rear of his BMW.
Pitstop Race
The penultimate Pitstop Race of 2025 proved to be a thriller as what seemed like another runaway for Mark Smith turned into a captivating run to the flag involving the PB Racing with JMH Audi of Marcus Clutton.
In the first half of the race, Smith repeated his dominant drive from lunch-time's Sprint Race and built up a handy lead over Clutton's co-driver Erceg, who himself made a solid start to the race to get past Darren Kell and into second.
After the stops, Clutton got behind the wheel and started slicing down Smith's advantage by significant chunks per lap. On the final lap, the pair were nose-to-tail and coming through Nelsons, Marcus eased his way through - making contact with the McLaren. Clutton was penalised after the race and bumped to second, Smith taking his second win on the day.
GTC proved no such drama for Fenwick and Gilbert. The former started the Super Trofeo and made quick his escape from the squabbling pack behind, handing over to Charlotte with a useful lead that saw them take the flag with significant distance over Tom Walpole's PMT Motorsport KTM. More significantly, the victory provides yet more useful points for the pair's championship battle.
Bennett and Simpson swept the GTH day in the Innovation Racing Ginetta, the pair coming out best in what proved to be a Ginetta v Aston Martin battle in the closing stages. The young pair came out on top, with Feathers Motorsport's Archie Clark and Tom Canning taking another podium with second. Oselli Motorsport rounded out the podium finishers as Matt Eddolls and Sam Maher-Loughnan took third.
It was also a clean sweep for GTA winners Caudle and Charlie Digby. Having initially lost the Group lead to a hard-charging Wallace in the SVG BMW, the pair kept pace with the M4 and re-took the lead into the second-half of the 50-minute showdown.
#30 Hadley Simpson
"It's been a really exciting day for us, and hard work to say the least! It's all paid off in the end. It's been a big adaptation initially; I did Brands Hatch but it's still different to what I'm used to, and it's a big hats off to the guys at Innovation for the work they've done on the cars and supporting me. Owen was really fast and maybe had the pace advantage on me in race one, so I had to try every trick in the book with that defence and was really chuffed with that one."
#2 Jamie Caudle
"It's been an absolutely mega first experience in GT Cup. These cars are just phenomenal, and this version of the Ginetta is just a different beast. I think it's about six or seven seconds faster every lap than what I'd been used to previously, so it's great fun and the grip you've got on slicks compared to road tyres is amazing. You can fire so much more in. Charlie was having a good race with the BMW and it's good competition, it really is."
#13 Tom Walpole
“The KTM is brilliant, it's just me! I don't know if I was feeling it today, result-wise today it was fantastic. The Lamborghinis were having a great battle, I was trying to push on and pass them but they were just a bit quicker than me. Great result today, though, with second in the Pitstop Race - really enjoyed the battling today and can't wait to be back for even more next season."
#23 Fraser Fenwick
“I can't complain at all with how today has gone. We're really happy with how everything has gone, not even this weekend - all year. Yes, we've had our ups and downs but that's motorsport. Just have to pick ourselves up from the downs and get straight back on the ups. And as a team, as a driver in myself, and with Charlotte too - and Iain when we were in the car together - we couldn't have asked for any more as a team. We've all done so well at bouncing back when we needed to, so really happy with how today has gone, it's the same as the rest, so we just want to carry that on into tomorrow now.
