It was all change among the British Touring Car support bill for this season. For the first time in 15 years, a one-make Ginetta series did not feature and instead the Caymans of the Porsche Sprint Challenge GB became a regular fixture, while a rotating cast of guest championships provided plenty of thrills and spills.
Whether it was some brilliant Legends action at Croft or frenetic Mini 7 Racing Club tussles at Thruxton, these series added some welcome variety and proved popular with fans.
But, while there was plenty of change in 2023, some constants remained. British Formula 4 provided another close title fight, while there were some very impressive performances among the Mini Challenge and Porsche Carrera Cup GB competitors.
So, here is Autosport's review of the season, examining how the champions were crowned and picking out our star drivers of the year.
British Formula 4
From the moment Louis Sharp burst onto the British Formula 4 scene last year, he has been turning heads with his performances. After travelling over from New Zealand, he completed far fewer test days than his rivals yet was instantly on the pace of his Carlin stablemates. And, despite being too young to contest the opener, he was in the mix at the second event, taking a podium at Brands Hatch.
Fast forward 12 months and Sharp was back for another crack and, after finishing fourth in 2022, he was in the spotlight again – this time as the highest-placed driver staying in F4.
“There’s always pressure whether it’s your first year or second,” he says. “But there was probably more pressure on me than some of the others. As one of the favourites, a lot of that pressure I put on myself as I wanted to win and didn’t want anything else.”
And Sharp began that quest in impressive and memorable fashion. While he led throughout the first Donington Park contest from the front row, it was his stunning climb from 20th to win the reversed-grid race that truly justified his pre-season favourite tag. Yes, he was aided by a safety car bunching the field and questionable driving by some of his rivals – a recurring theme of the year with just eight of the 30 races not featuring at least one caution period or red flag – but it was still some achievement.
Yet Sharp struggled to build upon that impressive start. Podiums followed at Snetterton and Thruxton, but no wins, and little incidents began creeping in and costing him points.
“It was pretty frustrating – we started off really strong and then, all of a sudden, our pace seemed to have disappeared,” recalls the Rodin Carlin racer.
“I still felt like I was driving well and the team was still doing a good job. It was a tough period to go through – when the pace isn’t there, you end up having to make that difference yourself and be a bit more aggressive and go for riskier moves.”
Having qualified just ninth and 12th for the series’ maiden visit to the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit, Sharp used the summer break to spend time with the team and attack the final four events with fresh vigour. A return to winning ways at Croft was key and then, after a runner-up result at Knockhill, came a crucial moment at Donington Park.
Hitech’s Will Macintyre had been consistently visiting the rostrum and usurped Sharp as points leader, this pair having a clear advantage over the rest of the inconsistent field. But 2022 Ginetta Junior runner-up Macintyre spun out of qualifying in Leicestershire, leaving him down the order as Sharp took another win. They headed to the Brands Hatch finale split by a single point although Sharp had the advantage all weekend and duly sealed the spoils.
“It just shows all the hard work and sacrifices we’ve made have paid off,” says Sharp, who had to leave friends and family behind in New Zealand, having been joined by his dad in “moving to the other side of the world”. But the globetrotting has been worth it, with Sharp once again turning heads as he prepares to rise further up the single-seater ranks.
Porsche Carrera Cup GB
There was only ever one goal for Adam Smalley in the Porsche Carrera Cup GB this year. After finishing runner-up last season, he was determined to follow in his previous four Juniors’ footsteps and claim the crown. No pressure then. But, after a strong start, winning the title never truly looked to be in much doubt.
Smalley laid down a marker by qualifying on pole for the Donington Park opener and, although he slipped to second in the first race, he stormed from fourth to the lead on the opening lap of the reversed-grid contest to signal he meant business. Having switched from Redline Racing to Team Parker during the off-season, Smalley credits competing in the winter Porsche Sprint Challenge Southern Europe series as being key to his impressive start.
“That was a really good experience and a great way of finding out how Team Parker work and how to work better together,” he explains. “I think that was a really beneficial few weeks, which meant we hit the ground running.”
Yet there was a hint at Donington that Smalley might not have things all his own way. Richardson Racing’s Robert de Haan had pulverised the PSCSE opposition and made history, pouncing on Smalley at Donington to become the youngest-ever winner in the Carrera Cup GB aged just 16. But then, in the rain of race two, he spun off down the Craner Curves, and that combination of flashes of speed but errors ultimately meant he fell away from Smalley in the points, even before he started skipping rounds to compete in Europe.
Smalley, meanwhile, was metronomic. He chalked up podium after podium to build what was quickly looking like an unassailable points lead. Sure enough, he wrapped up the title with a weekend to spare and finished the season with a remarkable 14 podiums from 16 races.
“I had a worst result of fourth – I could’ve never even dreamt of that at the start of the year,” says Smalley. “We had that points advantage so it was like it was mine to lose.”
Sure enough, his path to the title was not always smooth sailing. He lost a potential win on the second visit to Donington with a wide moment at Goddards in the rain and even at Silverstone, where he clinched the championship, he plummeted down the order after opting for slick rubber on a drying track before calmly rising to the front again as the track improved.
Reigning Ginetta GT4 Supercup champion James Kellett emerged as Smalley’s main rival as the Century Motorsport driver grew in confidence with the car throughout the year after limited pre-season experience. But other title contenders – and drivers Smalley defeated to be selected as the Junior – vanished from the fray early on.
A terrible start meant Gus Burton opted to focus on the Porsche Supercup before taking a couple of wins after returning with JTR mid-year. Similarly, 2021 Sprint Challenge GB conqueror Theo Edgerton bowed out after things did not go his way at Thruxton.
There was no such trouble for Smalley and his impressive performances even continued after wrapping up the spoils as he signed off by winning the Brands Hatch finale, despite his front splitter breaking free. Not even that could dislodge Smalley from his remarkable run.
Mini Challenge
The winter “reset” clearly worked for Dan Zelos. The 2021 Mini Challenge champion had a poor season last year as he only mustered three podiums when attempting to defend his title. Zelos admitted the pressure got to him at times and he therefore adopted a new approach for this campaign.
“I wanted to come back and prove myself,” he says. “There were certainly points last year thinking, ‘Where has the pace gone, was it [2021 title] a fluke, was the pace actually there?’ But we went into the season with a really good head space. Everything seemed to click, and it was spot on from the get-go.”
Sure enough, Zelos instantly dispelled last year’s disappointment by taking pole at Donington Park and winning two races. But then came a moment that threatened to derail his year. He was involved in a huge crash with Sam Smith in race three when Smith cannoned into him at Redgate. It forced Smith onto the sidelines as he recovered from concussion and Zelos was worried he might join him.
“It was a horrific crash and I feel very lucky to have been able to walk away from it,” admits Zelos. “Big crashes like that cause big repair bills and there were questions whether I would make it to the end of the season.”
But his Excelr8 Motorsport crew was able to prep a spare Mini in time for the next Brands Hatch round and Zelos was back on form, winning the opening race before a puncture struck while leading race two. Yet that proved to be the end of his bad luck as he proceeded to rack up the wins to head to the Brands finale on the cusp of the title.
Key to that success was a string of poles only ended by the returning Smith in Kent. Second to Smith in the opener, despite a late gearbox problem, was enough to seal the deal and, when the replacement started leaking oil in the second race, Zelos says: “It was like the car had realised it had done its job!”
It certainly had, although Zelos was pushed hard in the early events by Hybrid Tune’s Ginetta GT5 graduate Will Orton. He defied his lack of Mini mileage to pounce when Zelos’s woes struck before engine troubles at Snetterton set him back. Aside from a couple of outings from reigning champion Sam Weller and when Smith finally returned, Orton was the only one really capable of challenging Zelos. But it could perhaps have been a different story had Smith not suffered that Donington accident.
Porsche Sprint Challenge GB
The 10-week gap between the second and third events of the Porsche Sprint Challenge GB season gave plenty of time to reflect. And Ginetta Junior graduate Joe Warhurst wanted to use the hiatus to turn his season around after battling to podiums on his first wet-weather running in the Cayman at Donington Park before struggling in Snetterton qualifying and then suffering a track-limits penalty when pushing too hard at Hamilton.
“I knew, if we continued this way, I wasn’t going to win the championship and I needed to do something about it,” recalls Warhurst. “I spent a lot of time with Team Parker trying to look at everything that went wrong and why it went wrong.” And that hard work yielded results as he qualified on pole at Croft and seemingly won the first race before dropping to fourth with a penalty for being “30cm over the line” at the start.
Sunny In then provided dark clouds when he went off in the rain of race two before being spun by Toby Trice (Redline) at the following Donington event meant Warhurst was starting to be frustrated by the lack of wins. “All around my bedroom I’ve got second-place trophies,” he remembers thinking. He used his training for the Great North Run to provide extra preparation for Silverstone and this paid off. “I broke the ice with my first win and then took two more with me as well!” says Warhurst.
With Redline’s long-time points leader Steve Roberts struggling with track-limits sanctions of his own and having retired at Donington after tangling with Matthew Armstrong, Warhurst was right back in the title picture. While he was gaining momentum, other frontrunners like Trice, Warhurst’s team-mate Armstrong and Graves’ Max Coates all struggled to achieve the required consistency and dropped from contention. And then two more Warhurst wins from pole at Brands Hatch sealed the deal and his transformation was complete.
Autosport’s top 10 TOCA support series drivers of 2023
10. Robert de Haan
Like Fairclough, de Haan was another spectacular driver to watch this year. On pure pace, the Dutchman should be higher up this list but he made too many mistakes in the Carrera Cup – especially when it came to following the new track-limits rules – to be any better than 10th. But it was easy to forget his lack of experience in such cars as he made history, becoming the series’ youngest race winner at just 16, and also landed more success across the Channel, including winning the Benelux title.
9. Marc Warren
It is very rare for a driver not in the Pro class to make this top 10, but there was something a bit special about Warren’s achievements this year. For an Am driver to win any race outright is impressive, but Warren managed it four times in the Sprint Challenge to prove it was no fluke – giving him more overall wins than anyone except Warhurst. Yes, he has impressed in Ginetta series previously but beating drivers less than half his age and with much more experience is no mean feat.
8. Deagen Fairclough
There was never a dull moment watching Fairclough in F4 this year! Earned his place on the grid after topping the ROKiT Racing Star sim shootout and lived up to his car’s branding with his rocketship starts to regularly fly up the order from lowly qualifyings. Made some enemies with a few questionable moves early in the season but combined a little more maturity with his gung-ho attitude later to snare third in the points as others fell off the pace, finishing with more victories than Macintyre.
7. James Kellett
Kellett was not quite able to replicate his Ginetta GT4 Supercup pulverisation from last season in the Carrera Cup but still finished the year with the most wins on five, and three of his triumphs came without the benefit of a reversed grid. A tangle with Charles Rainford left him with just two points after the opener and hampered his title bid right from the start. Then nerfing team-mate Gus Burton off after a poor start from pole at Brands was not great either, but regularly impressed from then on.
6. Joe Warhurst
Inevitably, one of the champions must be the lowest-ranked and, unfortunately for Porsche Sprint Challenge GB conqueror Warhurst, that happens to be him. He was almost unstoppable at the final two events, winning five of the six races, to snatch the title away from Steve Roberts. But he’d not achieved such domination over the field – in which no one had really stood out and Am driver Marc Warren had been able to head – earlier in the season and therefore finds himself lower in Autosport’s top 10.
5. Will Orton
Orton certainly did not look like a Mini Challenge rookie with the manner in which he began the season. He instantly emerged as the much more experienced Zelos’s main rival and, any time the 2021 champion was in strife, Orton was there to pounce and held the early points lead. But recurring engine issues at Snetterton dented his charge and thereafter he was unable to claw enough points away from Zelos to make a closer fight. Nevertheless, he still marked himself out as one to watch for the future.
4. Will Macintyre
His Old Hairpin Donington qualifying spin happened in front of Autosport and Macintyre’s obvious disappointment was understandable – he knew it was a blow to his title bid. Yet it was easy to forget this was his first season in single-seaters considering how he took the F4 battle to sophomore Sharp down to the wire. Given the narrow margin, it seems right they should be next to each other in our rankings, too. He scored the same number of podiums (14) as Sharp but the fact just two were wins proved the difference.
3. Louis Sharp
Produced arguably the standout drive of the season with his victory from 20th on the grid in the rain of the Donington Park opener. But British Formula 4 was the only one of the overall championships decided in the final race and his five-event mid-year winless spell means Sharp is not higher up the order. The Kiwi still coped admirably with the pre-season ‘favourite’ tag and was back on form in the final four events to narrowly triumph having not let his slender points lead heading to Brands Hatch faze him.
2. Adam Smalley
Porsche Carrera Cup GB dominator Smalley came pretty close to knocking Zelos off the number one spot with some sublime consistency of his own. Of the 16 races, he took 14 podiums – a seriously impressive feat. But, again, he faced limited opposition at times this year and, ultimately, his far lower win percentage (25%) and lack of poles (only two) means he has to settle for second. Yet, winning the title with an event to spare and never losing his cool mean he is still more than deserving of a high ranking.
1. Dan Zelos
Just 0.129 seconds in a thrice red-flagged final qualifying session of the season was all that separated Zelos from an unbeaten run of Mini Challenge poles. Such a remarkable feat is surely deserving of top spot in Autosport’s rankings. Yes, the series may have lacked established frontrunners, but Zelos’s consistency was incredible and he secured the highest win percentage of any driver among the TOCA supports (50%). Barely put a wheel wrong all year as he wrestled back the title in convincing style.
