The 2025 British GT season wasn’t even a race old when complaints began roaming around the paddock during the Donington Park opener last weekend.
It started happening around 5pm on the Saturday as 2 Seas Motorsport had just bagged a dominant 1-2 in qualifying, with its #42 Mercedes going six tenths quickest.
GT3 debutant Charles Dawson was key to the result, having topped the opening session by 0.8s before his co-driver Kiern Jewiss sealed pole in the final qualifying outing. British GT qualifying is split into two sessions: the first contested amongst amateurs with the second for professionals, whose fastest lap times are then combined to determine the final standings.
The result prompted teams to rush to race control to question it, and championship management was even understood to be shocked by Dawson’s gap.
But what was the problem?
“He’s a silver,” states Mark Lemmer, the boss of reigning champions Barwell Motorsport, in reference to the FIA Driver Categorisation system.
The gradings are split across four levels - platinum, gold, silver and bronze - and each car in the British GT3 class must field a bronze-rated driver (Dawson) alongside a racer who is at least a silver (Jewiss).
So Lemmer was referring to Dawson as somebody who should be graded higher. And if 2024 showed anything, it’s the strength of a car’s bronze racer that largely determines its success, because the pace gap across amateurs is typically greater than that between the professionals.
Last year, Rob Collard was substantially quicker than any amateur driver so he and son Ricky clinched the title for Barwell.
But there was still an asterisk next to the Saturday rumbles, considering the race was yet to happen and for all anybody knew, the pace of the #42 Mercedes may have vanished come Sunday.
Yet it didn’t. Dawson drove a faultless stint and led by five seconds when it was time for Jewiss to jump aboard, and the 22-year-old withstood late pressure from Barwell’s Sandy Mitchell to win the two-hour race by just over a second.
“I don’t think anybody’s going to beat Charles Dawson this year,” says the bronze-rated Richard Neary, who finished fifth in the Team Abba Mercedes. “Give him silver ballast, 25 extra kilos in the car.”
Come 2026, there is no doubt that Dawson’s licence will have been upgraded but when that time comes, the wider categorisation system also needs to be rethought
But why? Just because Dawson was rapid at Donington doesn’t mean that the 2 Seas entry should be immediately punished. There is also the added caveat that qualifying took place without Rob Collard, who skipped the Donington round for medical reasons. If the reigning champion was present, it is doubtful that the gap would have been so big.
So fair play to Mitchell’s co-driver Alex Martin saying: “Good on him, he’s driving really well. We’re not here to just turn up, pay money and collect a trophy, we’re here to do some racing…I relish the challenge!”
And by definition, Dawson should be ranked as a bronze because according to the FIA, the following criteria applies:
• A bronze driver is somebody who “obtained their first licence after the age of 30”
Dawson began racing in 2022 when he was just 32-years-old.
• The driver must have had a “comparable level of performance to bronze drivers”
Dawson only began winning races last year, yet won the British GT4 Pro-Am crown with Seb Morris.
The 2 Seas driver therefore has reason to say "I’m a genuine bronze" because "I run businesses outside, I’m in the car seven weekends this year, I started racing after 30 and had no experience before that".
But maybe the fact that he is a bronze by definition is where the problem lies, because the minimum age for one is 30, yet there is no upper limit. So, a driver could easily be double the age of a fellow competitor but hold the same grading.
Take Donington’s amateur qualifying session for example, it had a 34-year-old Dawson competing against a 61-year-old Andrew Howard. Unless it’s a rare circumstance, like Rob Collard’s ability to just keep going, an amateur in their 30s will learn much quicker than one in their 60s - as a British GT champion put to this writer.
So, there needs to be a rethink about what a ‘gentleman driver’ - the person who funds the car - actually is in the modern world and if they can all just be put into the same category.
“Maybe the desire is to make Charles’ pace the new bronze regime,” says Neary, 57. “If it is, there is no place for the likes of me and Andrew. Maybe it’s the 30-something era of bronze drivers.”
There must always be a place for the older gentleman drivers. A lot of these complaints may also be premature given the season has only had one race, so does British GT apply balance of performance weight to the #42 Mercedes before the next round in Silverstone or wait and see if Donington was a one-off?
That is a dilemma the championship currently faces and it is really the only change that can happen this year. Come 2026, there is no doubt that Dawson’s licence will have been upgraded but when that time comes, the wider categorisation system also needs to be rethought.
