Orange Racing by JMH kicked off the 2026 British GT Championship season in electric fashion, clinching a top-four overall finish and second place in class at the curtain-raising Silverstone 500 event last weekend (25/26 April).

Simon Orange and Marcus Clutton – returning for their second full season together as a combination – fought back from an unfortunately-timed safety car to charge to second in Pro-Am and kick off the campaign in impressive style for the McLaren 720S GT3 crew.

The #67 car, backed by Sale Sharks, William Hare, CorpAcq, BOL Foods, Parkway England, Smith Bros. and Shoppertainment, arrived off the back of a hugely encouraging GT Winter Series campaign, where Simon and Marcus finished as vice champions from their European ventures.

Returning back home for the first of six British GT events, the McLaren team hoped to start strongly and mount its title challenge in the three-hour season opener at Silverstone.

Testing pace confirmed what was demonstrated on Media Day, as both Orange and Clutton mixed it with the frontrunning teams across Friday’s action under sunny skies ahead of the weekend’s key action on track.

Saturday’s two one-hour sessions kicked off proceedings, with the team working on set-ups in preparation for Sunday’s big race. The car ended comfortably inside the top 10 in class throughout both Free Practice and Pre-Qualifying, ahead of the afternoon’s two quickfire Qualifying outings to decide the car’s placing in the rolling start for Sunday.

Both drivers had 10 minutes each to set their best times, starting with Simon who put the #67 McLaren inside the overall top 10 with a solid effort that was also sixth in Pro-Am. Marcus stepped aboard the car for his attempts immediately after, and improved the time down to 1:57.929s, ensuring the team would start Sunday’s race from seventh spot – P6 in their class.

Three hours of intense GT racing at the 3.6-mile Home of British Motorsport followed, with Simon starting in the car from what proved to be a dramatic rolling start to kick off the race. A collision between two Mercedes team-mates directly ahead parted the road perfectly for Simon to sweep into fourth place overall, carrying that position through to a Full Course Yellow after 30-minutes of action.

Orange handed the McLaren over to Clutton having put in a strong opening stint, leaving the latter to chase down the leading trio ahead of him while defending fourth from Ben Barnicoat’s McLaren GT3. He slipped behind his rival who was soon penalised, but then continued to chip away at those ahead until the race was rudely interrupted by another FCY and subsequent safety car appearance.

It came just as a second pit stop was taken by the Orange Racing by JMH squad under green flag running, meaning they were one of those unfairly hindered and put back while others benefitted from pitting under reduced speed.

Starting from P11 on the restart, more chaos unfolded ahead of Orange as retirement for the second-placed Lamborghini again caused a safety car, just after Simon neatly squeezed by Morgan Tillbrook’s McLaren at Village corner to move into the top eight by the time the race restarted with just under an hour on the clock.

He then completed a successful lunge inside the Lamborghini of Duncan Cameron at the Village complex to grab seventh, only to hand the car over to Clutton for a final burst to the chequered flag. Another off ahead of them created a third safety car with Clutton now back into a strong position in his stint – sitting fifth overall with a reduced eight-minute dash to decide the result.

With a huge result still on the line, Clutton made it count on the restart with a bold move around the outside of Jarrod Waberski’s Lamborghini going through the fast Abbey and Farm corners, confirming fourth overall at the finish and second in the Pro-Am class in a brilliant recovery performance by the #67 crew.

Jason Hughes, Team Manager: “A tough race to predict at times, but we kept to our plans all the way through and both drivers did absolutely all they could in their stints which meant we were always in contention for a good result. We got unlucky with the safety car that put us back into recovery mode, but we made it back up and got a great result. It’s a positive start, so we need to keep this momentum going to Oulton next.”

Simon Orange: “A great way to start the season. It was a long race with strategy being crucial at times, so for me personally I knew I had to keep good pace in the first stint and keep the car in contention for the end of the race. We got some bad luck with one of the safety cars, but to come back and get a podium in class is mega for us.”

Marcus Clutton: “An interesting day for sure! I think I said before the race that it’s not necessarily about pace in this race, but about strategy and probably a lot of luck. Then at about mid-race we got shafted by the safety car timing and we thought we were done, but it came back to us. To come away with the result that we did today is great, and if you’d said on Friday that would be the result we’d start the season with I’d have snapped your hands off, so it’s a good start to the season.”

Next up for the Orange Racing by JMH squad is a double dose of shorter endurance action at Oulton Park over Saturday 23 May and Monday 25 May, with a pair of one-hour races in Cheshire.