Race one at Rockingham this weekend will be the 150th in the history of the Michelin Ginetta GT4 Supercup, the latest milestone for a championship that has been at the forefront of British motorsport since its introduction in 2011.
From the opening race with the Ginetta G55 at Brands Hatch in April 2011 through to the 149th encounter 1961 days later at Knockhill earlier this month, the championship has produced five different champions, 25 race-winners and 42 podium finishers.
The men to emerge as champions have been Adam Morgan (2011), Carl Breeze (2012), Tom Ingram (2013), Charlie Robertson (2014) and Tom Oliphant (2015) – a group that features two current BTCC front-runners, a European Le Mans Series champion and a rising Porsche star.
It’s the 2012 victor Breeze who has competed in the most of the 149 Supercup races so far courtesy of being ever-present on the grid between 2011 and 2015, a spell that accumulated 135 starts including the milestone 100th race for both driver and championship at Knockhill in 2014.
Three other drivers have since gone on to make their century, with Reece Somerfield reaching the milestone in the 2015 Brands Hatch GP season finale, before Jamie Orton and Colin White joined the club this season at Brands Hatch Indy and Donington Park respectively.
Eleven other drivers have reached the half century, while the stalwart team in the championship is Century Motorsport, who have only missed six races since the Supercup’s inception. JHR Developments have 112 starts to their name, with White’s CWS squad next on 110 and then Total Control Racing on 93 and Douglas Motorsport on 88.
Carl Breeze – Credit: Jakob Ebrey Photography
Race Starts
135 – Carl Breeze
115 – Reece Somerfield
110 – Colin White
107 – Jamie Orton
77 – Fergus Walkinshaw
76 – Tom Ingram
72 – Will Burns
69 – Mark Davies
58 – Tom Oliphant
57 – Dan Norris-Jones
56 – Carl Boardley
54 – Tom Sharp, Andrew Watson, Rob Gaffney
50 – Marcus Hoggarth
From his 135 race starts, it’s no surprise that Breeze has produced the most race wins with 29 – though for a long time it was Tom Sharp who led the way with 20 race victories, having recorded nine in 2011 and eleven the following season.
Three other drivers have reached double figures in former champions Ingram and Oliphant, plus 2016 champion-elect Tom Wrigley who reached the milestone earlier this month at Knockhill. Closing in on the accolade meanwhile is Orton, who has three wins so far this year.
While Sharp has lost the outright win record, he remains the driver to have pieced together the longest run of consecutive race wins with six in a row at the start of 2011, though Wrigley gave beating him a good go earlier this season with five on the bounce.
Wrigley’s nine wins so far this campaign also sees him closing in on the record for wins in a season, which Sharp and Ingram currently share with eleven victories apiece in 2011 and 2013 respectively.
Tom Sharp – Credit: Jakob Ebrey Photography
Race wins:
29 – Carl Breeze
20 – Tom Sharp
17 – Tom Ingram
11 – Tom Wrigley
10 – Tom Oliphant
9 – Nathan Freke, Jamie Orton
8 – Charlie Robertson
5 – Andrew Watson, David Pittard
3 – Adam Morgan, Mark Davies, Pepe Massot
As with starts and wins, it’s Breeze who leads the way with the most podium finishes in the 149 Supercup races so far. Breeze accumulated 82 rostrum finishes, finishing in the top three in 60.7% of his races in the series – though Ingram leads the way in that table with a 76.5% success rate.
That comes courtesy of Ingram’s remarkable 2013 campaign, in which he posted 22 consecutive podium finishes – not only the most in succession but the most in a single season as well, with only the four other champions joining him in recording 20 or more in a campaign.
Fifteen different drivers have reached double figures for podiums in the series, the latest being Mark Davies with a double at Knockhill earlier this month, while at the same meeting Wrigley set a new record for starting a season with thirteen consecutive rostrum finishes.
Tom Ingram – Credit: Jakob Ebrey Photography
Podium Finishes:
82 – Carl Breeze
39 – Tom Ingram
33 – Tom Sharp
31 – Tom Oliphant
28 – Jamie Orton
25 – Will Burns
20 – Adam Morgan, Nathan Freke, Charlie Robertson
15 – Andrew Watson, Tom Wrigley
12 – Matt Nicoll-Jones, David Pittard
11 – Pepe Massot
10 – Mark Davies
To find out who wins the prestigious 150th Supercup race, keep an eye on The Checkered Flag over the course of the weekend. A full breakdown of the all-time Michelin Ginetta GT4 Supercup statistics meanwhile will be on site at the end of the season.
