Feathers Motor Sport (FMS) were crowned GT Cup GTH Class champions in the series finale at Snetterton last weekend, following another stellar season that included no less than six victories and an incredible 22 podium finishes – an astonishing 100% finishing record.
This hard-earned title rewards three seasons in the UK based endurance sportscar series for FMS filled with dedication, commitment and outstanding achievement. FMS has been a consistent GTH championship contender throughout this period, with its Inspire Engineering-prepared version of the ultra-successful Aston Martin Vantage GT4 achieving an exceptional 17 class wins and nearly 50 podiums.
For driver Archie Clark, the GTH crown also marked the end of a perfect week, the 16-year-old long-term protégé of FMS partner Base Performance Simulators having clinched the prestigious Ginetta GT Championship the weekend prior. Clark was also crowned the GT Cup Sprint Cup vice-champion for his performances in the Sprint races (which comprise half of the starts in the GT Cup season), and in which he amassed four emphatic class wins through 2025.
The occasion also marked the second championship title with the Aston Martin Vantage GT4 for rising GT racing star Tom Canning – a regular with FMS since its first GT Cup season with the Aston Martin, in 2021 – the 23-year-old having been crowned British GT4 champion in 2019 with a similar machine.
For the fourth and final time in 2025, the GT Cup ran to its standard weekend format at Snetterton, with a 25-minute Sprint Race on each day as well as a 50-minute Pitstop Race featuring both drivers.
While FMS has led the GTH class throughout the season, the Northamptonshire-based organisation has not always enjoyed the most competitive car, and Saturday was proof again that in certain circumstances the Aston Martin is not able to match the performance of some of its rivals. In such situations, execution and sporting perfection are the only achievable objectives.
Clark drove to those parameters with precision and delivered third place in the first Sprint Race from third on the grid. In the Pit Stop race things were closer, and Archie was able to get a better start instantly passing one of the Ginettas ahead of him off the grid and then diving down the inside of the other into Agostini. By the end of lap one he led, while his two closest rivals made contact.
It took the rest of the stint for the Innovation Racing Ginetta to recover and catch Clark, who resisted the pressure before diving into the pits to hand over to Canning. GT Cup uses a penalty system for success and driver balancing, which meant that the Ginetta’s stop would be 45 seconds quicker than the Aston. Faced with such odds, Canning focussed on the points and took second.
With championships firmly in mind, but honour in heart, Clark and Canning went for it in the second Pit Stop race on Sunday afternoon to try and claim a win and they came oh so close… Clark once again did a brilliant job to take the lead, this time at Coram on lap two. And again, it was the Innovation Racing Ginetta that gave chase all through the stint.
This time when Canning climbed on board the Aston Martin, he found himself with only a 13s gap to recover. Typically, he put on a charge, sometimes lapping more than a second faster than the leader before a Safety Car with 12 minutes of the 50 left to race equalised the field. This should have been great news for Canning, but when the race went ‘green’ with one lap to go, a three-car shunt on the restart prevented a final victory shot of the season.
Clark then made it a third second place of the weekend in the final Sprint Race, unable to do anything about the faster victorious Ginetta. In the end though, that podium was enough to lock down a championship title, that for FMS has been five years, three seasons and 66 races in the making.
Clark said: “What a season! When we started the year we knew the pedigree of the Feathers Motor Sport team, but of course it’s a dream to be able to say that I’ve won an endurance championship in my first season of GT racing. I can’t thank the team enough for that they have done for me. I have learned so much, and I’ve had so much fun along the way, but I think we’ve shown as a team that we’re a match for anyone. I’d like to congratulate everyone in the team, Simon and Tom and everyone at Inspire Engineering on the GTH Class title, I know how much it means, and I’m very proud of them all.”
Canning added: “It’s fantastic to have finally achieved our goal of winning a title in GT Cup. We’ve been so close in the past, and it’s amazing to believe that we all first raced together with this car in 2021! We were in with a good chance in 2023, until misfortune played its part, and so it’s great to have finally sealed the deal this weekend. FMS is wonderful team, full of kind, dedicated and talented people, and they fully deserve to enjoy this championship – they’ve earned it!”
Team Manager Simon Rose said: “This is a tremendously satisfying and rewarding feeling, to be able to call Feathers Motor Sport the GT Cup GTH Class champions. We’ve been a part of this class on and off for five years and we’ve worked so hard to clinch this title. Everyone in the team has earned this, and I am immensely proud of their achievements. I would like to thank GT Cup for putting on an excellent series, Aston Martin for such a wonderful car, our partners for their invaluable and essential support, all at Inspire Engineering and of course our drivers Archie and Tom. We’ve always said that FMS is a small, family run team with fierce ambition to achieve the exceptional through outstanding execution; this year we simply couldn’t have asked for any more from everyone involved.”