► We experience the Porsche Carrera Cup GB at Knockhill circuit
► 503bhp flat-six engines, identical cars, super-close racing
► Is this the UK’s best racing series?
Close racing is always the best racing and when the top ten in qualifying are separated by less than three tenths of a second, you know you’re in for something special…
For anyone with an interest in British motorsport, it’s long been known that the TOCA package contains some of the best racing in the UK. Touring cars, hot rods, Minis and Formula 4 squeezed into two days of swapping positions and paint (and often a whole lot more) makes for a brilliant weekend out, but over the last few years it’s been another series on the package that’s arguably risen to the top.
The Porsche Carrera Cup GB is now into its 22nd – and arguably its best – year of racing. Manufacturer-backed, it’s a proving ground for aspiring GT racers and, since 2008, has had its own junior driver development programme where – every two years – a new young driver is chosen from a pool of the UK’s best talents.
The cars themselves are Porsche 911 (992) GT3 Cup cars, boasting 503bhp from a 4.0-litre flat-six engine that’s largely identical to the unit in the 911 GT3 road car. All cars, whether they’re in Pro, Pro-Am or Am class are identical with parts controlled by Porsche to ensure optimal reliability and fairness.
As such, it’s a thrilling championship to watch with 2024 seeing arguably its most competitive year yet. At the time of our trip to watch the series at the beautiful Knockhill circuit in Scotland, the top of the Pro class sees Will Martin, Charles Rainford and ex-BTCC racer George Gamble fighting for the ultimate honours, while in Pro-Am Angus Whiteside, Ollie Jackson and Sid Smith are separated by just 11 points at the top of the standings.
However, it wasn’t always this exciting. Back in the 2010s, the 991 Cup cars looked and sounded the part, but the racing and competition didn’t always back it up. The cars were infamously hard to drive (an ex-champion once told me ‘if you can drive a Carrera Cup car fast, you can drive anything quickly) and they were undoubtedly in the shadow of what was a hugely watchable British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) that headed the TOCA package.
Fast forward to the early 2020s and things have changed somewhat. The BTCC (now lumbered with awkward and expensive hybrid tech) is struggling to recreate its best form, while the Carrera Cup (showcasing easier-to-drive 992 cars) is a proper spectacle packed with incredible looking cars and immensely close racing.
Ex-Porsche junior and 2020 Carrera Cup champion Harry King deserves some credit for this – nobody had seen the 911 GT3 Cup driven with such aggression and fearlessness before – but the package as a whole (now with partial reverse grids) was on the way up.
For those wondering how much it costs to buy a 911 GT3 Cup car, it’s £223,980 including VAT, a comprehensive spares package and delivery. A full season meanwhile can be done for between £200-300k (including ‘rental’ of the car). Not cheap, but when you realise a full calendar in BTCC can be around £600k, it starts to make a lot more sense to drivers.
One of which is Charles Rainford. We spoke to Charles right after he took the race 1 win at Knockhill. A daring overtake on polesitter Hugo Ellis through Duffus Dip got him the lead, while a stubborn and precise defence led to his first win of the season.
Speaking to Charles, it’s clear he’s not your typical racing driver nor did he have the most conventional route into the Carrera Cup. Working with the family business CCK Historic prepping and restoring classic racing cars, Charles did the odd bit of circuit driving in MG Midgets alongside instructing at Brands Hatch.
However, he quickly decided that his racing dreams were better served in modern cars, so – with the help of an eye-watering bank loan – managed to purchase a 991 Cup Car in 2020 with a view to making his debut as a Pro-Am in 2021. According to Charles, however, the famously tricky-to-drive car took a bit of getting used to…
‘I couldn’t get the thing out of the pit lane. Bit of power, it went one way, another bit of power, it went the other way. First lap, I’m like, ‘this is awful’. I wasn’t driving quick enough to get heat in the slicks.’
Charles did eventually get the hang of it, but it took a while for the results to show in a competitive grid of far more experienced (and wealthier) teams and drivers. ‘We didn’t know what to do in qualifying. You know, we thought we used one set of tires and that’s it.’
Fast forward to 2024 and although Charles still sleeps in a tent at race meetings, the budget has improved thanks to main sponsors Cognition Land and Water, plus a Pro-Am championship win in 2022 helped prove his quality. Now he’s battling for the outright Pro Championship and has eyes on a factory drive for a major manufacturer.
It’s not just those starting out in car racing that head for the Carrera Cup GB, however. Despite his youthful looks, Dan Lloyd has been racing for 21 years – with 14 of those in car racing. A former Porsche GB Junior driver and BTCC race winner, Dan built a reputation as one of the hardest working competitors on the grid when it came to sponsorship and getting a budget together.
So what made him come back to the Porsche Carrera Cup? Well, for a start a competitive season in BTCC is considerably more than the equivalent in Porsches while the closeness of the cars is also a huge bonus.
‘The cars are exactly the same’ explains Dan. ‘Last year (competing with a lower end BTCC team) no matter how much hard work I put in, I went into the race weekend knowing I’d struggled to qualify in the top 15 because of the car and the engine. Now it’s all down to the team and the driver.’
And when, like Dan, you have 17 different sponsors keeping the car on the grid, it’s crucial you get the best value for your money. Add in the exceptional hospitality that Porsche provides, the prestige of the name and the same ITV4 live coverage that the BTCC receives and it’s obvious why the Porsche Carrera Cup Great Britain is on the up.
For the moment, there’s no plans to see the Carrera Cup progress beyond anything more than the support role it plays on the TOCA package, yet make no mistake there’s a hugely exciting and professional series within that. Drivers from across the motorsport spectrum reap the benefits, while Porsche itself sees huge advantages from running its own one-make series in the UK and across the world.
For those wanting to see the Carrera Cup in action, tickets to each round are available via the circuit website while almost every race is broadcast live on ITV4.