• Equipe Verschuur will join the British GT Championship’s GT4 ranks this season after confirming that Scottish duo Finlay Hutchison and Dan McKay will race the team’s McLaren 570S. The Dutch squad and Hutchison had already announced plans to contest a second season of the GT4 European Series together after finishing fifth in last year’s Silver Cup standings with the same McLaren. However, 2018 will mark the 18-year-old Dundee native’s first ever full campaign in any UK category after previously graduating from karting to Formula Renault 2.0 NEC.

• Jack Mitchell and Aleksander Scjherpen have completed Century Motorsport’s full-season BMW GT4 driver line-up ahead of British GT’s opening round at Oulton Park this weekend. However, with Schjerpen unable to attend due to clashing commitments, BMW Motorsport Junior Driver Ricky Collard will make his championship debut in place of the Norwegian. Mitchell is switching back to the GT4 class, which he contested in 2016, after a successful GT3 campaign aboard Macmillan AMR’s Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3 with which he claimed four podiums and a pole position. His full-season co-driver Schjerpen is also no stranger to the championship or Century having raced for the Fenny Compton-based team in 2014-17.
• Steller Motorsport has announced its two Silver Cup driver pairings for this season’s British GT Championship. Sennan Fielding and Tom Canning will team up aboard the #68 Toyota, while Dean Macdonald and Alex Quinn share the second, #86 GT86 GT4. The squad has now revealed a full-season line-up featuring three teenagers and the youngest driver in British GT history. Canning, a recent championship-winning karting graduate who contested Ginetta Juniors last season. He’s joined in the #68 entry by former single-seater ace Fielding who finished second in 2016’s FIA British F4 Championship and fourth in the BRDC’s equivalent two years earlier.
• A third Mercedes-AMG GT4 will compete in British GT this season after Nick Jones and Scott Malvern confirmed their switch to the new-for-2018 machine. Team Parker Racing will once again run the entry. The pair spent 2016 and ‘17 racing the championship’s sole Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport MR and will be amongst the first in Britain to receive the new Mercedes-AMG. Fox Motorsport and Richardson Racing have also entered the model, which is set to compete in customer hands for the first time this year.
• McLaren will increase its involvement in the British GT Championship this season by extending its official Safety Car partnership to a third year while also placing factory and development drivers in the series.  Tolman Motorsport‘s two Silver Cup entries feature four McLaren Driver Development Programme members: two-time British GT4 race winner Charlie Fagg partners ex-Formula Ford racer Michael O’Brien, and 2016 GT4 championship contender Jordan Albert links up with GT Cup graduate Lewis Proctor. The team is also fielding the familiar duo of David Pattison and Joe Osborne who finished second in last season’s Pro/Am standings with Tolman. The latter, whose speed and professionalism throughout the year were both recognised with British GT’s coveted Allan Simonsen Award, has also been confirmed as a new addition to McLaren’s full factory driver roster.
• RJN Motorsport will step up to British GT’s senior class this season after announcing that Devon Modell and Struan Moore will campaign a Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3. The team already oversees UltraTek Racing’s two Nissan 370Z GT4s but, for the first time, will also now utilise its vast experience of running Nissan’s factory GT3 programme in the Blancpain GT Series domestically. Moore and Modell represent the GT3 category’s only full-season Silver Cup pairing but arrive in British GT with significant experience. 22-year-old Moore was part of RJN’s Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup sqaud last season and also made a one-off British GT4 appearance with the team at Silverstone.
• UltraTek Racing Team RJN confirmed that Stephen Johansen will partner Jesse Anttila in the second of its Nissan 370Z GT4s. With Kelvin Fletcher and Martin Plowman already announced in the #53 car, the team – which is overseen by the same RJN squad that runs NISMO’s official Blancpain GT Series entries – opted to unveil its second Pro/Am driver pairing the day before British GT organisers announce this year’s full-season entry list. Debutant Johansen will fulfil a career-long ambition this season by graduating from the VW Racing Cup support series to British GT. The 53-year-old was a consistent front-runner in the VW Cup having previously contested the VAG Trophy and Fun Cup Endurance Series.
• Reigning British GT champions Seb Morris and Team Parker Racing will compete together in the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup this season after confirming a Pro/Am entry with Bentley.The reigning GT3 Drivers’ champion previously announced plans to pursue his options in Europe following the conclusion of 2017’s British GT campaign. And Bentley has now confirmed that the 22-year-old Welshman will remain aboard the same customer Team Parker-run Continental GT3 for a crack at the pan-continental Endurance Cup.
• All eight of the British GT Championship’s UK rounds will be streamed live on its Facebook page and website this season. Free broadcast-quality, advert-free coverage begins with two 60-minuite races this Easter Bank Holiday Monday from Oulton Park and includes the series’ trips to Rockingham, Snetterton, Silverstone, Brands Hatch and Donington Park. Motor Trend On Demand and SRO’s GT World Youtube channel will carry the same live coverage.

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Compiled by Sam Tickell from PR materials