27/04/26

ROUND 1: SILVERSTONE 500

Revie Lake's first weekend as a British GT driver began with promise but ultimately ended in frustration as the young McLaren driver was forced to retire from the championship's opening round at Silverstone.

Revie Lake's first British GT weekend showed flashes of genuine pace.

Making his British GT debut alongside Blake Angliss in Mahiki Racing's #84 McLaren Artura GT4, Lake arrived at the Home of British Motor Racing with only one season of full-time car racing behind him.

Yet from the opening session, there were signs that the teenager was ready to make the step into GT4 machinery.

A flying start in practice

Lake and Angliss immediately put themselves at the sharp end of the GT4 field.

The pair topped the opening official Free Practice session, with the McLaren recording a best time of 2:09.422 around the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit.

It was an impressive start for a driver entering his first-ever British GT weekend.

The official championship report confirmed that Lake and Angliss narrowly held off Toro Verde GT's Ginetta, establishing the Mahiki McLaren as the early GT4 benchmark.

For Lake, it was an early indication that the move from junior racing into GT machinery was not going to be an easy one - but neither was it beyond him.

The teenager had pace.

Now he needed to turn it into a result.

The challenge of the Silverstone 500

The opening round of the 2026 championship was unlike the sprint races that would follow later in the season.

The Silverstone 500 was a three-hour endurance race, meaning Lake and Angliss had to manage not only outright pace but pit strategy, traffic and the demands of sharing the car.

The race would also provide Lake with his first experience of British GT's multi-class environment, with GT4 cars sharing the circuit with considerably faster GT3 machinery.

Unfortunately, the #84 McLaren's promising weekend unravelled during the race, and came to an early end after 34 laps, leaving Lake and Angliss classified as a retirement.

The result meant no points from Lake's first British GT outing.

A frustrating first chapter

On paper, a retirement is an underwhelming way to begin a championship.

But the weekend contained one particularly encouraging statistic.

Lake had already demonstrated that he could run at the front of the GT4 field.

For a 16-year-old moving directly from Ginetta Junior into one of Britain's premier GT championships, that mattered.

The Silverstone 500 had been intended as the beginning of a long apprenticeship.

Instead, it became the first lesson in just how quickly things can change in endurance racing.

Lake would have to wait another month for the chance to put things right.

And when British GT arrived at Oulton Park, he would get that opportunity twice in the space of one day.