Paddock Motorsport have announced their return to the British GT Championship grid after confirming that Mark Smith and Martin Plowman will return for a full 2026 campaign aboard the team’s McLaren 720S GT3 Evo.

This season will mark the pairing’s fourth full British GT campaign together, with the #9 McLaren adorned in an updated black and pink livery.

Smith and Plowman enjoyed an improved season last year, regularly contending for the top five positions. Consistency was a particular strong point for the outfit, having scored points in every race bar one and completing every racing lap in 2025.

The team will now be looking to translate this reliability into results, with sights being set on podiums once the new season gets underway.

Mark Smith said: “Throughout our 2025 campaigns we showed significant improvement, with both better qualifying performances and better race pace developing throughout the year. Toward the end of the season, I felt like we made significant gains in our setup, and this was never more obvious to me than at the GT Cup Snetterton finale. The car felt better than it ever had, and to drive the point home I forced a purple lap out of it on beat-up tires for the final lap of the season. If we can reproduce how the car felt in that race, I have no doubt that we will be fighting near the top in British GT this season.”

Paddock Motorsport founder Martin Plowman added: This year feels like a big one for us. Last season we made huge progress with both the car and our driver development. You only need to look at the fact Mark won so many GT Cup races–15 from the 19 he entered–to see exactly how much he improved across the year. When it came to British GT, we found ourselves well in the mix for the top five at many rounds, even if a few instances of bad luck meant the results weren’t always thereon paper.

“We want to push forward this year and be fighting for podium finishes, and I have every confidence we have the team and the expertise in place to do exactly that. Once again the additional mileage in series such as the GT Cup will only help, and we have greater ambitions too with a potential plan to push into more European competition, so it’s shaping up to be a very exciting year ahead.”

Tickets for all 2026 British GT events at MSV circuits are available now. Click here for more information.