THE WINNERS OF THE BRITCAR 24H 2026 TOP SPLIT
The Target Was Simple
This was our second attempt at Britcar. After finishing fourth last year, I had been waiting for this race for a very long time. It is one of the, if not the, most competitive endurance events in the UK. But this year, it had become an official iRacing event, as opposed to 2025, when it was organised solely by Motorsport UK. That meant even more top-class teams and drivers. It also meant that the challenge would be not only to win, but to even get into the top split in the first place.
I told the team that the target was to win. That this was literally the only result I would accept. Then they announced that we would have two rain showers, one of which promised to be quite heavy. With two classes and 60 cars on track, anything could happen. Deep inside, I thought it would be something of a miracle if we even found ourselves on the podium.
When we entered the race session 30 minutes before the start, my mood darkened somewhat. I saw the teams that had entered: WSR, who had beaten us by two laps last year, TSRC, SRN, Altitude FreeM. Very established outfits, with some world-class drivers and trophy cabinets large enough to require planning permission. It also turned out that the average strength of field in GT4 was higher than in the GT3 class, which did absolutely nothing to improve our mood.
But before the race, everybody had told me that we would not even make the top split. Yet we did. So the first step was taken. We now had to concentrate on our own race and simply do our jobs as well as we possibly could.
A Rough Start
Qualifying went surprisingly well as we qualified second. But the first two stints dampened our spirits once again. After Charlie Devlin set the fastest lap of the race on lap two, which remarkably remained the fastest lap for the entire 24 hours, we started getting traffic. A lot of traffic. Forty-seven GT3 cars were lapping us, and they were not doing it lightly. With the GT3 field still bunched up, they wanted to use every opportunity, including several that appeared to exist only in their imagination.
We were trying to let them by cleanly, even at the expense of our own lap time. They did not care. They would push us through corners, go three-wide into fast corners like Copse and Stowe, make multiple contacts and damage our car in the process. Charlie dropped to fifth, but braved it out until the first stop after an hour of racing. We lost time repairing the car, but as soon as we came back out, the same thing happened again. A GT3 car tried to make a pass around the outside of Copse. Inevitable contact and damage to both cars involved.
Charlie once again stayed out and carried on with the damage rather than compromising our strategy. At the end of the second hour, we made our second planned pit stop, changed tyres and repaired the damage once again. By that point, over ten GT3 cars had suffered irreparable damage and retired from the race.
That gave us some hope. Perhaps the most aggressive drivers had now removed themselves from the equation and we could simply get on with our race. The problem was that we were already more than a minute behind the leader. Still, there were 22 hours to go.
The Long Game
Nathan Williams took over for the second stint. We knew we had to catch up, and we also knew that the leaders were using more fuel despite driving the same car. That meant they were pushing. We were conserving fuel. Nathan did an amazing job of recovering the team to P3 during his stint while extending fuel and tyre life, keeping the car clean, avoiding problems and simply clocking off laps with incredible consistency.
Charlie took the car again after 2 hours and managed to save even more fuel. While the leaders were managing 26 to 27 laps per stint, Charlie stretched ours to an astonishing 29 laps. At that point, we knew we would have one fewer pit stop than the leaders. That would give us roughly a 90-second advantage. We also decided that from then on, we would alternate our tyre strategy, changing only the left-hand tyres mid-stint rather than all four. That gave us another 20-second advantage every second stop.
We thought we were being rather clever. Then we realised everyone else had started doing the same. Still, Charlie was doing an excellent job on fuel, and we knew that it would give us an advantage later, even though we were continuing to drop further behind the leaders. And, as you’ll see, it will prove to be vital later.
Into the Night
Tristan Engelstad took over for the fourth stint. It got dark and cold. But at least we could now see the faster GT3 cars approaching, because their headlights provided something resembling a warning system.
As Tristan put it:
“I am driving with my eyes split between my mirrors. Instead of looking ahead, I have to drive watching the left mirror with my left eye, and the right mirror with my right eye.”
And that was practically compulsory. With still almost 40 faster GT3 cars spread around the lap, every single corner seemed to contain a couple of them arriving at full speed with absolutely zero intention of losing even a fraction of a second while lapping us. They were sending it down the inside as if this were their final chance to snatch the Formula 1 world title, rather than one of the stints in a 24-hour endurance race.
However, Tristan’s eye-splitting strategy worked. He worked his way up to the lead.
Suddenly, We Had a Chance
Lap 222. Just under 16 hours to go. Timothy Friis Larsen took over under pitch-black darkness. And at that point, I started to believe we might actually have a chance.
Because of our better fuel strategy, we were almost a pit stop's worth of time ahead of our rivals, only losing the lead temporarily after the pit stops. We knew that in a couple of stints, they would lose even that advantage, as our extended stints would allow us to gain a full stop's worth of time and remain ahead even after our own stops. By the end of Timo's stint, with 14 hours to go, we had established a steady outright lead. And we would not concede it until the end of the race. It was starting to look real.
Unfortunately though, we were expecting rain. Because apparently winning a 24-hour race without first having a small existential crisis would have been too easy.
For the next seven hours, Nathan, Tristan and Timothy simply maintained the pace in full accordance with our strategy. The night was surprisingly calm. All we had to do was avoid mistakes and avoid contact with GT3s. Even though we did not really need to make massive fuel savings anymore, we continued to do so. The commentators were left wondering why we were still doing it. As you will see, it would become rather important later.
By the end of Timothy's stint, we saw rain on the radar. The sun was rising. So were everyone's doubts, as rain could turn everything upside down. It was time for Timothy to box and hand the car over to Charlie, and I was very happy that Charlie was next, because he is one of the most competent drivers we have in wet conditions.
The Wet Sunrise
When Charlie took the car, the rain was already falling. But it was too early to put wets on. So Charlie went out on slicks. For almost half an hour, he braved the conditions on slick tyres. Others started pitting for wets, while we waited for the obvious crossover point.
We knew we had a pit stop's worth of advantage that we had created earlier, so we could afford to wait. Eight laps after our rivals pitted for wets, we did the same. We needed that margin to delay our next stop, as we would eventually have to wait for the track to dry. Except it didn’t. The rain continued for almost two hours.
Charlie did a fantastic job, pulling away by almost 0.7 seconds per lap from P2 while simultaneously trying to avoid GT3 cars that seemed to be spinning every lap. After others started pitting for slicks, we continued on wets to play it safe. We lost around 20 seconds, but we could afford it, precisely because of the delayed stops earlier in the race that had created that advantage.
On lap 498, we finally boxed for dry tyres. Our advantage had been reduced to just 30 seconds over P2. The track was drying, but it was extremely difficult to drive. The dry line was beginning to appear, but the GT3 cars had to move onto the wet surface to pass us. And in every single corner, we had to avoid them as they spun alongside us while attempting to get past.
Charlie eventually started moving onto the wet himself to let them by. It was survival of the fittest. Charlie was, indeed, the fittest. After four and a half hours of an extremely difficult stint, Charlie handed the car over to Nathan and Timothy when it became almost fully dry.
With more than two laps of advantage built during the wet sunrise, all they had to do was bring it home. And that is precisely what they did.
Three Laps Clear
After everyone had doubted whether we would even make the top split, we won it by three laps.
I am extremely proud of the entire team for getting through 24 difficult hours of rain, changing conditions, traffic, strategy and the general chaos that comes with putting 60 cars on a circuit for an entire day. But we made it.
One may argue that top teams such as Verstappen.com were expected to compete but did not. One may argue that Britcar is not as prestigious as Daytona or Le Mans. But it remains one of the most competitive special events of the year, with many of the world's top teams and drivers competing.
And over the weekend, we were the strongest endurance team in the GT4 class. We were the fastest. We were the most consistent. And, most importantly, we were there when it mattered. All 4 drivers had the average pace within 0.3 seconds for the whole 24 hours - regardless of traffic, tyre wear or fuel. That is absolutely astonishing, showing that all 4 drivers made equal impact on the overall result.
It is now time to congratulate our legends:
Timothy Friis Larsen
Charlie Devlin
Nathan Williams
Tristan Engelstad
Special thanks to Ryan Stringer for the livery and for helping oversee the drivers' strategy.
Special thanks to commentators for mentioning us and spreading the word about sim-to-real program, it means a lot for us and for the drivers we are promoting.
Special thanks to iRacing, Motorsport UK (MSUK), Cosworth and other partners of the Britcar 24h event.
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