Darren Turner has a storied racing career under his belt, from starting in single-seaters and touring cars, before moving to GT and prototypes. He's stood on the top step of the podium at the biggest races in the world, claiming three GT class wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and a GTD Pro triumph at the Daytona 24 Hours. Now, he's taking on the challenge of the British GT Championship with Grange Racing by FSR in the #27 Aston Martin Vantage GT4.
Ahead of this year's GT4 Pro-Am campaign, we sat down with Darren to find out more about his aims for the season, the Aston Martin Vantage GT4 he'll be piloting alongside Dan Lavery, and what it takes to go racing.
Please introduce yourself! Who are you, and what do you do at Grange Racing?
I'm Darren Turner. I've been a professional racing driver for 27 years. I've been with Aston Martin with their racing programme since they came back to GT racing in 2005. I've been with the brand for 21 years now. Because of the journey with Aston Martin, I've now had the opportunity of not just driving the most modern race cars, but even the stuff from the beginning.
I feel really lucky to have that relationship with a manufacturer that's given me the opportunities to drive so many different cars from different eras. And I don't think that would have been possible if it wasn't for that long-term relationship that I've got with Aston Martin.
Let's talk about what you're driving this year for Grange Racing by FSR. Tell us about the Aston Martin Vantage GT4.
GT4 racing's booming. It's like GT3 in terms of when that came about, that whole concept of racing engaged with more manufacturers, and then GT4 came along off the back of that. Globally, I don't think GT racing has ever been as successful as it is right now. In 2026, you look at all the international championships, all the national championships around the world in lots of different regions. It's only as healthy as this because of the one format which all the manufacturers can supply cars to. And it creates equal racing. Some weekends you might have a car that has the advantage. Other weekends it won't be, but over the course of a year, it's a pretty level playing field that everyone's dealing with.
The Vantage GT4 has been hugely successful on the international stage. I've raced the earlier iteration of this car in 2021/22 winning the Pro-Am Championship both years. The car's now based on the latest Vantage, and we're now with Full Send Racing and Grange Racing for 2026. The Vantage is a thoroughbred road car, but one that evolved into a race car with a lot of components that are found on the road car.
Your race car has quite a few shared components with the road car, including the parking sensors!
Yeah, and thankfully, they're all disconnected so we don't get them beeping all the time! The thing is, if you took a Vantage road car to Prodrive/Aston Martin Racing and said "hey, turn that into a GT4" it's not something that would be impossible.
After your first run on a packed Donington Park racetrack today, we heard you describing the car's behaviour in crystal clear detail to the race mechanics. How do you work with them to finesse the car's set-up?
Today's test isn't about hitting a lap time. We're compromised too much with the other cars that are testing. It's a really mixed day - the GT4 is probably the fastest car on track today and we've got another 30 cars [Mini Miglias, Porsche Boxsters, classic touring cars] that are all slower by significant amounts. So you spend most of your time threading the needle of traffic management basically.
But under all of that, you then got to go, right, what's the cut? What's the balance of the car? That's the only thing I'm worried about today is how are we going to improve the performance of the car, balance and just general setup. So that's all I'm really thinking about. I'm not having to drive it like a qualifying session because it doesn't require that. Because if we get it right at 95%, it'll be good at 100% and it's fine.
You want the race engineer to engineer, and the race driver to drive the car. So you can get it where race drivers will start dictating what changes to happen on the car, but that's not actually my job. The race engineer's job is to interpret my feelings of where the car is. I can say "before we had this spring rate and it was a similar balance, but maybe we look at the lower spring rate". But I don't want to tell him "change it to that".
It's a relationship. I give the feedback, race engineer Josh translates that into what the technicians change on the car. That should be the path of command. Yes, there are times clearly you know exactly what you need and you can say "I reckon we need to be doing this on the rear anti-roll bar" just from the experience we've had from all the testing. You can go straight to the answer, but you want to do it as a joint venture between you and the race engineer.
You don't have the car to yourself - you're sharing it with your teammate Dan Lavery. How similar are your driving styles? And how similar are your preferred car set-ups?
They're similar. If you're in single seaters or anything where it's just one driver per car, then you go down your own path. But when you're in sports cars, you get so used to it. It's not a compromise, but it's never going to be absolutely perfect for me. We just need a car that's a good all-rounder and that we can extract it; it doesn't matter who jumps in it, they're going to be able to get the same sort of lap time out of it.
How is Dan settling into the car and the challenge of the British GT Championship?
He's got 2 or 3 years now under his belt, and it's a step up for him to this level. But he's developing incredibly fast. I'm always looking at his data - that's part of what my job is. When I'm looking at his driving in detail, either through the data or the video, it's really good. The fundamentals are there. He's not making any big mistakes at all. Most importantly, he gets it. He gets what the objective is of going faster on a racetrack. He gets it, moves on, gets it, moves on. So we can as a team, focus on developing the car.
What are your aims for the 2026 British GT season?
It'd be great if we're challenging for the Pro-Am championship - that's actually my target. And I think there's people in the team that are thinking of the overall GT4 title, but I think if we can be successful with Pro-Am, that'd be fantastic. Success is winning a race, or being the top 3 at the end of the season, that'd be fantastic. And to not have too many mistakes during the season for me, Dan, or the team, and then we could come away saying "that's a solid first year".
So that's my personal target. As soon as the red lights go out and we start the first race, it's like right, we'll try and win all this. You can have this grown up approach and say this is our target. And then lights go out and we just want to try and win everything.
How important is the connection between road cars and racing?
It's always been "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday" hasn't it? It's still part of the auto trade and I think more now if you're bringing along guests to the events and they get to be part of what's going on, part of the excitement, and to see the up and down moments. It's not all champagne and trophies!
There's tremendous hard work behind the scenes, and on a race day, it's full focus and a tremendous effort from everyone to make it successful. For people who come along to see it for the first time, it's a great experience for them to be behind the scenes and understand what goes on to get these cars out on the racetrack.
What are your thoughts ahead of the season starting at Silverstone?
It's a fantastic Grand Prix track. It's our first race as a team. So the enjoyment of the circuit will be secondary to just the enjoyment of us being successful as a team - doesn't mean on the podium or whatever. Hopefully it is, but it's more a question of "can we all go away on Sunday night from Silverstone being happy with our own individual performances and collectively as a team?"
What's your favourite racing memory?
It's always been the 2007 24 Hours of Le Mans. GT1, DBR9 - everything about that weekend and having the chance to stand on the top step at Le Mans on the podium is one of those unbelievable, humbling experiences, and the sea of Aston Martin flags that were there, and the sea of green that we could see. And the relief from everyone that's been part of bringing Aston Martin back to racing; it all started at the end of 2004, with testing in 2005, racing in 2006, and then eventually getting the big prize in 2007. It was like a relief for everyone. So that would always be my stand-out moment in motorsport.
This year's British GT Championship season kicks off with the Silverstone 500 from 25-26 April. Grange Racing by FSR will be campaigning the #27 Aston Martin Vantage GT4 in the Pro-Am category, and we can't wait to see you trackside this year. Get exclusive insights and a look behind the scenes by following us on social media.
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