Donington Race Report: Britcar Round 5, Convoy in the Park

Round 5, 2026 Britcar Endurance Championship, Donington Park. Donington Park National Circuit, Saturday 8 August 2026. BARC Convoy in the Park. A weekend of genuine pace, a fighting drive, and an electrical gremlin that had other ideas.

Some race weekends give you everything except the result. Donington was one of those. Round 5 of the 2026 Britcar Endurance Championship brought us to the 1.979-mile National Circuit as part of the BARC Convoy in the Park weekend, supporting the British Truck Racing Championship, for a single 90-minute endurance race with our Ginetta G55 Hybrid in the GT class.

Friday: on rails

Testing on Friday was as good as it gets. The car was on rails from the first run, and it was genuinely one of the best test days we have had as a team. The only blot on the day was a brief off at Redgate in FP1, courtesy of a few gallons of oil dropped on the circuit, and even that barely broke our stride. The crew had us recovered, checked over and back out without fuss. No drama, no drop in tempo. It set the tone for the weekend.

Saturday morning: qualifying

Donington Park, Round 5 — practice and paddock, 8 August 2026

Photos/Videos: Dave Chewter

Qualifying at 10:45 did not go to plan on paper. Traffic ruined every clean lap we tried to string together, and we ended up P6 in GT, P9 overall on the grid, with an official best of 1:10.759. But the data told a different story to the timing screens: a 1:10 flat was in the car and the driver. We knew the pace was real, and we carried that confidence straight into the race.

The race

When the 63-lap race got underway just after 14:20, with oil still down on the racing line, starting from the inside edge of the grid turned out to be a blessing. We made three positions on the opening lap and settled into the fight.

Then came the safety cars, and with them the first warning signs: a battery light, permanent ABS warnings, and a knocking sound on turn-in. Nothing that slowed us down at first. But as racing resumed, the battery problem began taking systems from us one at a time. Comms went first. Then the ABS turned intermittent, locking and reactivating mid braking zone. Then came random gear changes, and finally the power itself began to fade, with lap times slipping from 1:11s into the 1:16s. Even as the systems failed, the pace was real: our best race lap of 1:11.532 was just 0.121 seconds off the fastest GT lap of the entire race.

The final blow came in the closing minutes, when we were collected at Redgate by the race-leading Porsche, which finished off whatever intermittent power we had left.

The frustrating part is how close we were. This was not a weekend of hanging on. We were in the fight for a class podium and a championship race podium right up until the electrics decided otherwise.

On track and in the pits, Donington Park, Round 5

Photos/Videos: Dave Chewter

The team

What the result does not show is the standard of work behind it. Strategy and data were spot on all weekend. The pit stops were brilliant. The G55 the crew prepared and maintained was mighty, and they kept us running through every challenge the weekend threw at us, including a full de-gravel session after Friday's oil-assisted excursion. Nothing that went wrong on Saturday afternoon was down to preparation or execution.

A huge thank you as well to our partners Race-Keeper and GemClean for their continued support of the team.

Without each other we achieve nothing. Together we achieve excellence.

• Ginetta G55 GT4 — genuine pace on a stacked Britcar grid
• A fighting drive that never surrendered a position without a battle
• A team that diagnosed and responded to an in-race electrical fault under pressure
• A paddock experience built for partners, sponsors and drivers who want to be part of the story

Next stop: Snetterton

We survived and took the official classification: P16 overall, eighth in GT, with 56 of the 63 laps on the board and a car that came away largely unscathed. We leave Donington with proven pace, lessons learned and a team that is stronger for it.

Next up: Snetterton on Saturday 29 August. We cannot wait.