THE SILVERSTONE NIGHT — SCORPIO’S FIRST 24 HOURS

Ivan Taranov
Dec 9, 2025
6 min read

They say endurance racing is a battle. That it’s a war fought in hours, not laps. But nothing prepares you for the moment the lights go out and four sim racers: a teenager, two rookies, and a man whose rig was holding together with hope and plywood - march into the darkness like they’re storming the beaches of Normandy in virtual form.

Silverstone.

Motorsport UK’s main 24-hour event.

Scorpio eSports’ debut.

P4 in qualifying.

A grid of seasoned endurance killers behind them.

Scorpio eSports Britcar 24-hours of Silverstone

And then, the chaos began. We dropped to P6 within minutes, elbows out, traffic everywhere, the usual symphony of British elbows and questionable choices. But Noah and Charlie, like two lunatics who missed the memo that this was their first 24-hour race, clawed it back. By the end of the first sequence of stints, they had dragged Scorpio back to P3.

And in the strangest twist of all? They were the best on fuel strategy. On debut. Ten percent less fuel used than the sim-racing veterans who treat endurance racing like their morning coffee.

That was the moment we realised: Scorpio wasn’t just here to participate. We were here to hurt giants.

Into the Darkness

And then the sun began to die.

There is a particular moment in a 24-hour race when the sky turns orange, then purple, then black and the world stops being a racetrack and becomes a void. A horrible, endless, soul-devouring void. As the sun was setting, it was becoming very depressing, driving in the pitch darkness a lot harder and felt like going into the unknown, something cruel, but all drivers did extremely well.

None of the drivers made any mistakes under immense pressure. Not a single one. Through the traffic of a 52 car field, through darkness, through madness - not one error.

But the reason that was even possible had a name.

James Whitehead.

Our engineer.

Our strategist.

Our meteorologist.

Our therapist.

Our babysitter.

Our all-seeing oracle of Silverstone.

James volunteered not only to help us with the setup, but to also run all 4 drivers lap by lap, advising them when to push and when not to, how to warm up the tires, when to let faster GT3s through, when to attack, etc, etc… And without him this results wouldn’t have happened.

Initially I thought that I will have to get involved into the race quite a lot, I ended up not joining the voice chat with James and drivers the whole race simply because I understood that James has literally every aspect covered and my presence would only disrupt them.

And then came the night.

The Night Stints — Where Sanity Goes Berserk

Night stints were especially difficult, not only of darkness, but of Ryan’s rig that decided to break mid stint. I told James to pull him in for a driver swap, but that would have broken our strategy and we were fighting for P3 throughout the whole race.

Ryan braved it up, and kept driving for another hour with steering wheel moving around in his hands as the mount was broken. Yes. You read that correctly. The steering wheel moved. In his hands. Like he was wrestling a washing machine on spin cycle while trying to hit apexes at 250 km/h. Later on, his pedal plate fell off, and he had to put wood and papers underneath the pedals to be able to brake.

That isn’t improvisation. That is madness. That is Apollo-13-level survival engineering performed by a man half-blind from sleep deprivation.

Regardless of that, he not only finished that stint, but drove later on when Charles’ internet decided to say goodbye, making us lose almost 2 minutes, ultimately losing P3.

Then Noah was all over my ears, begging and almost leaving me no choice but to let him out during the night to catch up the time lost.

No-one slept.

Throughout the night, the teams between P2 and P5 were literally doing the same lap times, within 0.2s of each other. That was extremely intense. No time to breathe when all you want is a break.

It was trench warfare at 150 mph.

The Dawn — Warmth, Hope, and a Teenage Hero

As the morning came and we saw the first sun beams, it felt warm. It felt like there was hope that this mental massacre will eventually end at some point.

There was around 6 hours to go and we were P4 with almost 2 minutes gap to P3, P5 was catching us and we sort of accepted the fact that we will probably drop back to P5. I wasn’t getting involved and was just following the race, letting James to handle things.

They decided to change driver stints again to optimise the defence from P5 and it worked.

Charlie was the freshest driver as he had the longest break up to the point with no night shifts and we let him out.

He started his stint with around 15 seconds gap to P5 and in 2 hours the gap grew to astonishing 2 minutes, an incredible job by a 16-year-old British driver, who was extremely nervous during his first couple of stints, and gained huge confidence under James’ guidance. Both Charlie and Noah at some point were the fastest GT4 cars on track.

The kid wasn’t just driving. He was ascending.

Two Hours to Go — And a Miracle

Next few hours, as the sun was rising and giving us mental warmth, the gaps were stable and we were almost 2 laps behind P3, no hope there. We were just running our race and clocking up laps, no risk. The gap to P5 kept rising so it was all good.

But, with just 2 hours to go, miracle happened.

The team, who protested us and gave us 1 minute stop and go penalty in the first couple of hours in the race, was running P2 quite comfortable, crashed… Completely, DNF.

We are suddenly back to P3.

This was the moment when we all stood up onto our feet, probably even Charlie who was driving.

WE WERE BACK IN A PODIUM POSITION at the expense of the team who protested us earlier on.

Karma - that’s all we thought.

I was asking everyone to remain calm as my palms were getting sweaty and I suddenly got the hope of a podium back. We had under 2 hours to go, Charlie and Noah had the final stints and were blistering quick, nothing could stop us now. We were going to conquer the Silverstone podium on our first outing in a GT and in one of the toughest esports races in the world.

40 Minutes to Go — The Racing Gods Awaken

With 40 minutes to go Noah took over the wheel, extremely motivated and excited. We were flying, doing the pace of the top 2.

“Ivan, I’ll get a couple shots after the race. We’ve been given approval to do some donuts” - Ryan texted me.

“Yeah, race director approved the doughnuts” - James replied.

I’ve been through over a hundred of real races in my life and I know that racing gods do not like arrogance and pre-mature celebrations.

"I forbid anyone to think about celebrations before the end of the race. Never do that with me and with Scorpio, never. Keep your heads down until the checkered flag. Full focus” - I said.

And 5 minutes after, the world fell apart.

The Final Fifteen Minutes — The Cruellest Chapter

15 minutes to go. We are sitting comfortably in P3, gap to P4 is growing. Despite losing over 2 minutes on a questionable (at least in our opinions) blue flag penalty, 2 further minutes lost due to Charles’ disconnect, we were going to get the podium.

And then… Live timing suddenly lost Noah.

There is no Scorpio eSports on live timing any more. It felt like world went blank and our hearts stopped.

Another disconnect.

Charlie steps in immediately, but we lost another 2 minutes.

15 minutes to go.

Gap to P3 is over 45 seconds.

The whole race I was telling them to keep it calm, to not risk, to take it easy.

"Push like a mot******ng hell. We got nothing to lose” - I said.

"We’re on it” - said James.

Charlie became Max Verstappen and in just 15 minutes cut over 25 seconds to P3, but it wasn’t enough.

To say that Charlie was flying would be an understatement. After his nervous breakdown during the first couple of stints, he suddenly became one of the most composed, focused and professional esports drivers I’ve seen.