A slice of British GT history for Turner with record third GT4 class title
- 14 hours ago
- 3 min read
Darren Turner carved himself out a small piece of British GT Championship [BGT] history on Sunday, when he became the first driver to claim three career BGT GT4 class titles, winning the GT4 Pro-Am championship with Grange Racing by FSR at Donington Park.
The 52-year-old endurance racing specialist achieved the feat in style, as he and series rookie team-mate Dan Lavery raced to a fifth consecutive GT4 Pro-Am class victory in difficult wet/dry conditions.
“I’m very proud of this achievement,” said Turner. “I’ve raced in three British GT4 campaigns, and we’ve managed to come out on top in all of them. That’s not a bad strike-rate is it? Dan, and this team, have gone from strength to strength all season long and this is the perfect reward for all the hard work we have put in to make us a competitive force.”
Grange Racing by FSR is a brand-new team for 2026, and for Lavery this season marks his first in British GT, which makes the success even more remarkable for everyone concerned – especially since the title was clinched with another race yet to contest in the season, at Brands Hatch later in the month.
Collectively, Turner, Lavery and Grange Racing by FSR had to do it all the hard way on Sunday, as challenging weather conditions added to the pressure of competition and the need not to make any mistakes.
A considerable rainstorm that stopped just prior to the beginning of the two-hour race saturated the 2.5-mile circuit near Derby, meaning that Lavery, starting from the GT4 class front row (and GT4 Pro-Am pole), needed to start on wets.
“There is a lot of pressure not to make a mistake when you’re starting at the front, especially in wet conditions,” said Turner. “But Dan did extremely well. He held on to second place for a couple of laps until the more experienced Silver-graded drivers started charging through in the rain.”
But even then Lavery stayed in touch, never losing the GT4 Pro-Am lead until 30 minutes in, when he pitted for some hot slick tyres. It was a smart move by the young team, because while Dan dropped down the order to tenth in class, he immediately began lapping considerably faster than his rivals.
He climbed from tenth to sixth position, lapping as much as seven seconds faster than those still on wet tyres around him, but his progress was delayed by a Safety Car intervention, required to recover a crashed GT3 car. Ultimately Lavery pitted from second in class with 58 minutes of the race to run, handing over to Turner, who joined the race fourth in the GT4 class and leading Pro-Am.
“To be honest, it was not my busiest ever British GT4 stint!” said Turner. “Dan had already done all the hard work by the time I got in the car. My job was quite simple: drive fast, stay out of the way of the GT3s without losing time and take it to the flag.”
And that’s exactly what Turner did, finishing fourth overall in GT4 along the way.
The title victory added to the two the works Aston Martin driver claimed in the same class in 2021 and 2022, when he raced for the Newbridge Motorsport team in their Vantage GT4. The race win was his 14th GT4 Pro-Am victory and marked his 20th visit to the British GT podium.
The win also means that Turner and Lavery remain fully in contention for the overall British GT GT4 Championship, which concludes on 25-26 September at Brands Hatch. The duo are currently third in the championship, just 10.5 points behind the series leaders, with 37.5 points on offer.
“We’ll do our best,” said Turner. “It’s exciting to have something extra to race for at Brands, and because we finished fourth overall in class, it means we don’t have a success penalty to serve at the pitstop either, so that’s an extra bonus for us against some of our rivals.”
Before the British GT finale, though, comes one of Turner’s favourite racing weekends of the year – the Goodwood Revival – which takes place 18-20 September.
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