Less than 20 points separate Jamie Caudle and James Nicholas at the top of the Ginetta GT Academy championship standings heading into the penultimate round of the season this weekend at Brands Hatch (23-24 August).
A fascinating three-way battle has been playing out at the front of the GT Academy grid this season between the E3 Sport team-mates and Charlie Digby (MDD Racing), with the talented trio producing some superb performances whilst trading the race victories between them.
Digby had the upper hand in the Donington Park season opener with two wins, however a victory at each of the opening three events put Caudle to the top of the points. Nicholas dented his lead with a pair of victories at Oulton Park, but Caudle hit back with a double success last time out at Snetterton.
Between the top three, they’ve shared 29 of the 33 GTA class podium finishes available this season. That level of consistency from each of them means that once the championship’s dropped score system is brought into play, the points margin between them is even smaller, so it’s all to play for this weekend.
Alex Deighton (Paradine by Xentek) has been the closest challenger to the GTA top three across the campaign so far. He made a welcome return to the class podium last time out at Snetterton, in addition to previous silverware at Donington Park and Silverstone.
Louis Darling (MDD Racing) has enjoyed an impressive maiden Ginetta season so far and celebrated his first GTA podium finish at Snetterton, while Peter Thompson (W2R) has a podium breakthrough in his sights having finished in the overall top six on three occasions.
Lucie Hodgson (W2R) will be full of confidence after scoring her best result of the season so far with seventh overall at Snetterton, while making welcome returns to the grid this weekend are top ten finishers Robin Grimwood (E3 Sport) and Phil McGarty (Xentek Motorsport).
Lexie Belk (Privateer) is back for her second outing after an impressive debut at Snetterton, whilst Ben Cooke (W2R) returns for the first time since the Donington Park opener. Chris Babington (SVG Motorsport) meanwhile is set for his third appearance of the campaign.
In the rookie class, for drivers contesting their first season in car-racing, Sam Shrimpton (W2R) and Shiv Sapra (Paradine by Xentek) have been the pace-setters through the campaign so far. They head into the weekend having shared nine class victories from the opening 11 races.
2025 PalmerSport Ginetta Race Scholarship winner Shrimpton had only finished off the podium once prior to Snetterton, securing four wins along the way. He qualified on class pole in Norfolk, but then had to miss the races for the birth of his second child.
It was Sapra who went on to dominant the races at Snetterton. He became first rookie this season to take a hat-trick of class wins on a single weekend and secured the highest overall finish of any rookie so far this year, finishing second in the final race.
Despite his rivals’ race-winning successes, the current rookie class points leader is Allan Wright (W2R). Superb consistency has been the key to his challenge, finishing every race bar one and putting together a run of six consecutive podium finishes at this stage.
Completing the rookie class entry is Damien Duffy (W2R), who has shown impressive progression through the season and scored a pair of podium finishes so far.
Follow the action across the weekend on social media, @GinettaCars.
Provisional Timetable:
Saturday 23 August: Qualifying 10:35; Race One 15:25
Sunday 24 August: Race Two 12:10; Race Three 17:55
All three races will be streamed live on Ginetta’s YouTube channel, while live timing and results will be available via TSL Timing.
