Marcus Clutton has spent years waiting to call himself a British GT champion, but this season he finally managed to achieve his goal. He described the achievement as a ‘big relief’ after winning the series with Orange Racing powered by JMH.
Clutton and Simon Orange weren’t the favourites going into the championship finale at Brands Hatch, but after a rare mistake from championship leader Rob Collard in his Lamborghini, the team were in prime position to win the race and take the 2026 British GT crown in their McLaren 720S GT3 Evo.
Achieving the long-awaited dream
When Clutton burst onto the British GT scene in 2009, he showed all the qualities of a future champion. He entered three select rounds with ABG Motorsport in the Supersport class and won all three races.
Two years later, he returned for the 2011 season with the same team and won the GT4 class in what was his first full season in the championship.
However, 15 years later, he has now achieved his goal of winning the overall championship in GT3 machinery.
“It was amazing,” Clutton told BMM. “The first few hours of it, usual sort of thing, being speechless and then a few days afterwards, it just not really sinking in that we’d done it.”
“I’m not the youngest pro anymore, so it was getting to a level of, will I ever do it? Was I always just going to be a nearly was sort of person? So a big relief to get it in the bag.”
Recognition by McLaren at the Technology Centre
Their achievement was matched with recognition at the McLaren Technology Centre, a fitting tribute to the success of the Orange Racing team.
The McLaren 720S GT3 Evo was on display with a tidied-up livery, with Clutton and Orange proudly attending the Surrey-based centre. They were met by McLaren CEO Zak Brown and also got the chance to talk to Will Joseph, Lando Norris’ Formula 1 race engineer.
“I think it was probably a bit of a thank you from their side of things. We had a nice little tour of the place, got a few chats with some people, and they introduced us to Zak Brown, which was quite cool, even though I’d worked with him many years ago, which he doesn’t remember. He didn’t have enough time to spend chatting with us, as he had to get on a flight to America, but it was nice to meet him.”
“We met Will, Lando’s engineer, who some close friends of ours are very close friends of his, so he came down and said, “Oh, I believe I need to introduce myself,” so that was nice. It was very good, some cool stuff there, and nice to be recognised. They put on a nice show for us and that was really good.”
The feeling of becoming champion
“Huge amount of relief,” the newly crowned champion repeatedly reiterated to BMM when describing the feeling of crossing the line at Brands Hatch and becoming the British GT champion.
The two-hour race was a pressure cooker for the Orange Racing outfit, especially when the odds turned in their favour as Collard spun out of contention.
Clutton praised his teammate, saying, “Simon was the man who won that race. He did all the hard work. He got himself into a good position, hunted down the leader, pressured the leader into a mistake.”
Orange was, of course, the one who capitalised when Kevin Tse made a mistake earlier in the race and he was also putting pressure on Collard when he made his error. It was a stint that proved to bear fruit for the pair when the chequered flag was flown.
As a result of his teammate’s hard work, Clutton described his own stint as ‘difficult’, knowing he had to keep the car out of trouble.
“It felt like the hardest stint of my life,” he told BMM. “I had to keep it clean, not make any small errors, no track limits, no big kerbs. Usually I drive a car in anger and just get on with the job, and if I damage it, I damage it, and this stint was about being polar opposite.”
“It was a tough stint, but like I said, getting across that line, lots of tears, huge amounts of relief, lots of thank yous over the radio, it was a pretty surreal moment.”
How was the title won?
The 2026 season was one of consistency from Orange Racing, which ultimately helped the team achieve championship glory. Whilst their only win came in the final race of the year, four previous podiums and a points-scoring finish in all but one round were the result of the hard work and dedication shown by both drivers.
The season started with a fourth-place finish for the team, but they were awarded second-place points due to a couple of invitational entries finishing ahead. Clutton described the second round at Oulton Park as a ‘disaster’ but pinpointed the third round in Belgium as the ‘turning point’ in their season.
“We went to Spa, put it on pole position and finished second. I think that potentially was the turning point, where we thought, there’s an opportunity here. We continued to Snetterton with a double podium, both with time penalties because of success, and from Snetterton, that was when we thought ‘we’re in the mix here, we can definitely do something.’ We went to Donington, which didn’t really go our way. We still finished sixth, but we probably should have been fourth at worst.”
Despite not being favourites, the British driver said he ‘never doubted’ the team’s ability to win the championship.
He continued, “We could have gone to Brands feeling a little bit more positive about trying to win it. We never doubted it; we just knew it was a big task, and we had to ensure we did everything we needed to do, which was to win on the day and we did that.”
The title-winning partnership: Clutton and Orange
Simon Orange first brought Clutton in as a second pro driver for his team’s 2022 campaign in the Asian Le Mans Series. The duo would then be reunited for the 2025 British GT season when the British pro became available at the end of the previous season.
“They were the first team that I rang to say, look, I’m looking for work,” Clutton said following his departure from his previous team, Garage 59. He also said the opportunity to work with Orange again was promising, as he “knew with Simon, he had raw ability.”
Since beginning their partnership, the 37-year-old has spent countless days at his teammate’s house, working on the simulator to improve lap times so the pair could fight at the very top of the UK’s top GT series.
He did make the remark to BMM that the simulator work is something Orange ‘hates with a passion’, but the homework has now paid off following their 2026 title win.
“The championship is way too competitive to just be sat at home and thinking, ‘I’ll just do the job on Sunday’. It doesn’t work like that anymore,” Clutton said.
“It was about working hard and trying to take it a little bit more like a job rather than a jolly. He is a businessman, this is his hobby, but at British GT, it’s a job, if you want to win it, you need to treat it like a job, and that’s what we’ve been working on over the last two years together.”
The work the pro-driver does with Orange is also about trying to get the best out of him on race days, which involves the right preparation before a race.
“If anybody knows Simon, they know he’s a really good laugh, he’s a really likeable character, fun, but he’s also super passionate, and I think that’s where we kind of hit it off, back in 2023. We set up the two weeks of work with a good meal and a good few drinks and we had a right good laugh, and he’s all about that,” he explained.
“However, that has had to be calmed down, and a few other things are put into place, we have a 10 o’clock curfew in the evenings. Again, it’s just about trying to put that package together for him, where it doesn’t hurt our relationship, but ultimately we get a better result, and that works this year.”
Their partnership extends off track as well, with the two of them often enjoying golf days together. Clutton added, “we have other interests together, so as a relationship I think we are becoming friends, if you like, over Simon being a client.”
Clutton’s success didn’t stop at British GT
In the weekends following his British GT championship success, Clutton also achieved the Fun Cup Masters Championship crown at the season finale at Oulton Park.
The Fun Cup is a series the British GT champion competes in when he has weekends available in his busy racing schedule. He races with the Signature RV team alongside John Whitehouse and Steve Ruston.
“The Fun Cup has been my bread and butter work since 2010. I’ve won lots of races, but never actually won anything at the end of the year, so for Steve and John, who I work with, that was a nice little token for them to win the Masters class,” Clutton said to BMM about the achievement.
What’s next for the newly crowned GT champion?
Having achieved his goal, Clutton has his sights set on a couple of possible avenues for the 2027 motorsport season which he is looking forward to announce in due course.
At the age of 37, Clutton still has some career ‘boxes’ he wants to tick off before his time as a pro driver comes to a close.
He said, “Two more boxes are Le Mans 24 Hours, I did always want to be a factory driver, but I’m probably too old for that!”
“If we can do Le Mans at some point in my career, that would be amazing.”
His racing in 2026 isn’t over just yet, though, as he will feature in the EnduroKA finale at Brands Hatch on 15th November, which will have full coverage from BMM.
Main Image: Michael Jolley
