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Our first Digital Saturday of 2025 featured the final round of the WHO GT Championship in the afternoon. Despite being the hottest day of the year and plenty of massive traffic jams, we kept the Barn nice and cool.

Twenty-one racers took part in the morning pairs race, with Terry, James and rookie Simon leaving not staying for the Suzuka 1000. That gave us a line-up for the afternoon that looked like this...

   

Having built the big Suzuka track and given a 25 minute run-out to the GT Championship cars, we settled down to some GT pairs action - everyone able to run their own GT cars as pairs in a St Mary's style format: each driver running a ten-minute race and their scores aggregated...

   

There was some rapid machinery out there alongside some 'just-for-fun' entries. Simon M got his first taste of Scalextric digital racing with a GT4 Mustang - not the easiest of cars to drive!

   

At the end of four heats, the scores looked like this...

   

Victory went to Alex and Jean, thanks to Alex's 40 laps beating the 39 of Ryan.

Here are most of the cars from the morning session...

   

A 30-minute lunch break followed and then it was time for the 4-hour, 1000 lap team race.

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The GT cars were checked over and drivers got themselves in the zone for Super Pole. Two minutes in dry conditions gave us one of the closest ever battles for pole position...

   

Congratulations to Alex for taking top spot from Ollie by three thousands of a second and putting an Audi R8 LMS GT3 on pole for the first time in a WHO GT Championship race...

   

The qualifying drivers stayed on for the first twenty-minute stint of the race. A random selection of six weather types began with two suns and a cloud (meaning drizzle) forecast, but the following three would be a surprise. All six team fitted Hard tyres and were tackled the opening laps like it was a sprint race. At the front it was the top three qualifiers - Alex, Ryan and Ollie who were setting the pace, Dean's Aston Martin showing good pace and Oliver looking to work the Gearzilla Mercedes through the pack. Isaac was steadily running in the brand new Écurie Escargot Porsche and was a couple of laps adrift after some rear wing repairs...

   

As the first group of drivers handed over to their teammates, the Smooth Ops Mercedes had a one-lap lead over the AST One Audi, Gearzilla were four laps back in third and Slimline eight laps off the lead in fourth. The second Porsche was a further eight laps adrift. MOZZIE's promising start has turned to disaster, with Dean eventually getting the Aston back on track and staying on for the second stint. His first job was to take a 40-second Success Penalty, alongside Slimline and AST One - last month's top three finishers.

Oliver had also stayed on for a double stint and was fully-focused on chasing down the leaders. His 81 laps were the best of the bunch, overtaking both Rob in the Audi and Jean in the Smooth Ops Mercedes. We had a new race leader. Mike had the Slimline Porsche up to third by the end of the stint, with Andy taking laps off everyone but Oliver. Dean's run in the MOZZIE Aston hadn't been entirely trouble-free, but everyone had their fingers-crossed that it would keep going...

   

Sadly, the Aston was back in the pits, this time the problem looking terminal. Alex assisted and the patched-up car did return for Stephen to run 29 laps. After a final attempt to resurrect the car failed, it was retired before the end of the first hour. The MOZZIE drivers continued with Stephen's DBR9, but not counting laps.

Another major development was the appearance of rain clouds and a little drizzle dampening the track. It took ten minutes before the track was officially declared 'Damp' at 48 minutes, although none of the teams pitted for an unscheduled tyre change. Only Écurie Escargot would fit Intermediates at the one hour driver change. By that stage, Simon had retaken the lead for Smooth Operators, Ash four laps behind for Gearzilla and Rob nine laps off the lead for Slimline. Jeremy was in fourth for AST One and John fifth with the Écurie Escargot Porsche, twenty-three laps behind the lead car...

   

The second hour began with the track conditions continuing to dampen. The Escargot's Inters had worn quickly, but they were the tyres to be on, especially if the conditions remained damp. Alex brought in the Audi five minutes into the stint for an unscheduled stop for Inters, followed by Ryan for Smooth Ops. The sun soon came out to dry the track, so the other teams stuck with Hards. However, Ryan was driving a magnificent stint, even quicker than his opening 20-minutes. Alex was also on fire, those Intermediate tyres working well. Isaac had to pit again to change his worn Inters, so didn't benefit as much as the other two.

At the next driver change, Smooth Ops' lead had stretched to 17 laps, but second (Gearzilla), third (Slimline) and fourth (AST One) were all on the same lap. Écurie Escargot were 23 laps back, 41 laps off the lead.

AST One soon departed from the three-way scrap for second place - a necessary pit stop to fix some mechanical gremlins lost them track time, but returned the Audi to top form. Rob was the driver to sit out around eight minutes. Andy moved the Escargot Porsche up to fourth, trimming a lap off their deficit to the leaders and to Mike in third. Gearzilla were the team on the move in this stint, Ash taking five laps out of Ryan - the gap now 12 laps between Smooth Ops and Gearzilla, with Slimline another six behind. AST One had a 26 lap deficit to make up to catch the Escargots and 66 laps on the leaders.

   

The final stint of the second hour saw the AST One Audi right back on form as Jeremy took laps out of everybody - 3 laps on Jean in the leading Smooth Ops Mercedes and nine from John in the Escargot Porsche. Gearzilla lost laps to the teams in front and behind, now 17 laps off the lead and only two laps ahead of Slimline in third.

Here are the stint summaries for those first two hours...

   

And some video action from the middle part of the race...

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The leaders hit 500 laps - half distance - at 2 hours, 3 minutes and 58 seconds. So the race would probably continue a little further than the scheduled four hours. Clouds appeared again a few minutes later, with the track not officially declared 'Damp' until halfway through the next stint. There were no early tyre changes this time and it was Ash and Alex who were setting the pace for Gearzilla in second and AST One, who were closing in on fourth place...

   

Ollie was back driving for Slimline, Isaac for Écurie Escargot and Simon for Smooth Ops. The Slimline Porsche received a few hard knocks in this stint and required repairs that straddled the entire driver change window, dropping them 16 laps back from Gearzilla and 22 laps ahead of the Escargots - although it was the hard charging AST One that was their biggest threat. Alex had hauled the Audi back to within 3 laps of fourth.

None of the teams went for Intermediates at the driver change, although by the end of the stint, everyone had. The change in traction over the twenty minutes was a challenge - and a tribute to the complexity of the RCS64 software. At the front, Kev delivered a great drive, giving away only one lap to Jean in the lead car. The gap between first and second was now 14 laps. Mike steadied the ship for Slimline, despite having lost time in the pits at the start of his stint. Andy had cut the gap to 11 laps, with Rob seven laps behind in the rejuvenated Audi. It looked like a tasty battle was developing for third...

   

The final stint of the hour saw very little movement on the leader board - the leaders reaching 719 laps at 3 hours. Everyone on Intermediates, Ryan added two laps to Smooth Ops lead, Ash driving a good stint for Gearzilla. Rob lost a couple of laps to the cars in front, but extended Slimline's lead over Écurie Escargot, John finishing his stint with Jeremy's Audi on the same lap.

Into the fourth hour and Alex ramped up the pace a notch. The AST One Audi was blisteringly fast, clocking up 84 laps in the twenty minutes. That was enough to leave Isaac in his wake and set about catching Ollie. At the end of the stint, the Audi sat just two laps behind the Slimline Porsche. At the front, Kev was back again with another solid Bronze driver run, Simon managing to stretch the lead by just a single lap.

   

The clouds continued to sit over Suzuka and the track conditions remained constantly damp. Intermediates - or an occasional experiment with Softs - remained the tyres of choice. Oliver was back for a double stint to see Gearzilla to the end of the race. His was soon taking laps out of Smooth Ops' lead, but surely Jean and Simon could defend a 17 lap lead in the remaining 45-50 minutes? The fight for third had huge significance for the championship - Slimline needed those points to win the trophy. Fourth place and a win for Smooth Ops would hand the silverware to Ryan's team. Mike took some laps out Rob in the Audi - but it was only three laps, not what he'd hope from a Gold-Bronze match-up...

   

So we hit the start of the twelfth stint with 873 laps on the board for Smooth Ops - we would be going into around ten minutes of overtime. Simon was handed a twelve lap lead, with Oliver already up to pace and in pursuit. The fight for third saw Rob take over the Slimline Porsche, chased by Jeremy in the Audi and a 5 lap gap between them. Andy took over the Écurie Escargot Porsche, but was nineteen laps behind and focused on getting to the finish.

This final half hour was super-exciting. Oliver certainly put pressure on Simon and reduced the deficit to seven laps after twenty minutes - enough for Ryan to jump back in to the Smooth Ops Mercedes at the four-hour driver change. The other four teams kept their drivers in, but team captains Alex and Mike carefully coached Jeremy and Rob through the final ten minutes. Jeremy had cut the deficit to the Porsche to just 3 laps after 20 minutes. But he'd have to make that up and overtake Rob to change the outcome of the Championship. And it wouldn't be his team who would lift the trophy.

A pit stop with 50 laps to go was enough to halt Oliver's charge for the win. The gap went back out to ten laps - and Ryan had no problems holding it there until the end. But would he be taking home the championship trophy as well as a race winner's medal? All eyes were on Jeremy and Rob in the closing stages. Rob was running a sensible pace and keeping the Porsche on the track, or at least off the floor. The gap came down to two laps, but that's where it stayed. RCS64 finished the race on 997 laps and that was it - delight for Smooths Ops and Mike, Rob and Ollie, plus five very bashed-up GT cars...

   

Here are the overall results for the race...

   

And the stint data for the second two hours...

   

Congratulations to our race winners and to all our racers...

         

         

         

The championship ramifications will follow.

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Saturday's results mean the 2025 WHO GT Championship table looks like this...

   

It was an exciting end to the season, Slimline and Smooth Ops having two wins each... but it's Slimline that will be taking care of the WHO Tourist Trophy for the next twelve months...

   

Huge congratulations to Mike D, Rob and Ollie who have been the core team across the four races, with Mike McCann also featuring in March and April. As usual, Slimline ran four different Scalextric cars this season - a Mercedes AMG in March, a Bentley in April, the new Mustang GT3 in May and the Porsche in June.

Thanks to bonus points for his two pole positions, Ollie wins the drivers' championship in his last season as a junior...

   

Once the driver gradings for 2026 are published in early October, we'll start thinking about next year's championship.

[Gpa113]

Nice trophy!