Orange Racing by JMH took a sensational Pro-Am class victory and second overall in the British GT Championship’s two-hour visit to Spa-Francorchamps last weekend (20/21 June), also taking a Silver-Am podium with a second entry and earning the Team of the Weekend award.

The McLaren GT3 squad enjoyed their best performance since joining the series, as Marcus Clutton and Simon Orange brilliantly grabbed the team’s first overall pole position at the famous F1 circuit in the Ardennes before putting in a controlled effort to bring him the class win a day later.

Orange and Clutton made the trip across into Europe for British GT’s annual ‘away day’ with the McLaren 720S GT3 crew, this time with a team-mate for company. Alongside the #67 machine – backed by Sale Sharks, William Hare, CorpAcq, BOL Foods, Parkway England, Smith Bros. and Shoppertainment – the team supported a second 720S GT3 for Steven Lake and Silver champion, Tom Wood, in a deal that remains for the rest of the 2026 campaign.

Under scorching conditions in Belgium, the Orange Racing by JMH team showed similarly hot pace out on track throughout testing, and proceeded to bring that optimism into the two hour-long sessions on Saturday morning – Clutton setting the fastest lap of all in the dying stages of Pre-Qualifying.

It set the tone for Qualifying, with Orange putting in a hot lap to place his car second in a truncated Q1 that ended early after an off for a fellow competitor, before Clutton did enough to cement the car into a front row starting spot for Sunday’s grueling two-hour contest. Even better news arrived later that evening, as a technicality for the pole-sitting #18 Mercedes-AMG GT3 removed it from the results, gifting Orange and Clutton a maiden British GT overall pole position for the main event by an impressive 0.393s. Lake’s Qualifying effort was hindered by the stoppage, leaving the #69 car fifth in the Silver-Am class for the next day.

Excitement built towards Sunday’s race, and a problem for Morgan Tillbrook left Orange starting the race without his main rival alongside him. A fast-starting Alex Martin pounced in the gap however to take the lead into Eau Rouge corner for the first time, leaving Simon fighting with Marc Warren through the French FFSA GT4 cars that joined the grid for this round only.

It created some lairy moments when lapping cars, one of which baulked Orange through Stavelot to gift Warren second place. Rob Collard chased hard but the ex-BTCC race winner could not usurp Orange before he handed the #67 over to Clutton after 70 minutes during a lengthy period of Full Course Yellow and Safety Car interruptions.

When green flag racing finally resumed with 40 minutes on the clock, Clutton was now up into P2 after pitstops with the Pro-Am lead still in his pocket, but now chasing the lead car of Jarod Waberski for the outright win. After yet another safety car, what followed was a relentless final 20 minutes, with Clutton unable to catch Waberski for the outright win but surviving a final-lap battle in floods of lapped traffic to win the Pro-Am class ahead of Ben Barnicoat – finishing second overall on the road.

It was the Orange Racing by JMH team’s first Pro-Am victory, helping their title challenge ever more after a strong weekend in Belgium. The crew’s efforts were further rewarded by British GT handing out its Team of the Weekend Award to Orange Racing by JMH.

The #69 McLaren gave the team a double podium meanwhile. It began its race with Lake behind the wheel, settling into fifth in class and 11th outright after the first half of the race. Wood took over for the car for the final 40 minutes and, after surviving contact fending off Barnicoat, he battled it out with Josh Buchan’s Ferrari for fourth in Silver-Am for several laps.

On the final restart the car came to life, passing an ailing Jack Brown and taking Buchan’s Ferrari to move up to the podium places in Silver-Am. He closed right in on the BMW of Charles Clark at the finish, claiming third in Silver-Am for himself and Lake – eighth outright at the chequered flag.

Jason Hughes, Team Manager: “An absolutely brilliant performance from everyone in the team this weekend. We’re over the moon with the result, and to come away with the class win and maximum points in Pro-Am is what we came here to do. To get a podium on our first weekend with Steve and Tom also was fantastic, and we look forward to working with them for the rest of the season. We came so close to that first overall win, but this is only the start. We can be very proud as a whole team this weekend.”

Simon Orange: “We’re delighted to have got that first Pro-Am win off our backs for the season. We’ve been getting better and better and now we look like the title contenders that we want to be, so it’s a testament to the team that we’ve achieved what we did today.”

Marcus Clutton: “It’s a very important result for us this one. The team gave us a great car all weekend like last year so we knew we had a real chance to make it happen this time. The delays maybe helped us initially but with the traffic from the French series it made it very challenging especially in the last few laps to get through unscathed! We got the job done though, so we can be very happy with the class win as a team.”

Next up for the Orange Racing by JMH squad is the second double-header of the British GT Championship season, as they head to Snetterton back in the UK over the weekend of 15/16 August.