Zac Meakin and the Greystone GT team claimed a meritorious sixth place in class as they made a joint debut on the GT World Challenge Europe stage in Barcelona at the weekend.
Meakin, flying high in the McLaren Trophy series this season, was drafted in to join Greystone graduates Jayden Kelly and Michael O’Brien for the final round of the GTWCE, representing another step along the GT pathway for the reigning British GT4 champion. The team’s #77 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo was already familiar to the Briton, having raced against it in the International GT Open championship this season, but would be turning a wheel for the first time at the higher level as Greystone honoured an internal commitment to join the GTWCE within five years of being formed.
The Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona was also no stranger to Meakin, having already scored points in both legs of the recent International GT Open round there with Optimum Motorsport. Once the Greystone trio had played themselves and the car into the Spanish track during the open testing, free practice and pre-qualifying sessions, they were able to haul themselves up the order across the three-part qualifying process, eventually earning fourth-place in the closely-contested Silver Cup category, and 20th overall in a field comprising a massive 60 entries.
Meakin was charged with taking the start of the three-hour race but, after two formation laps, the field was quickly back under the control of the safety car as an incident at Turn 3 left debris scatterd across the road. The incident took place behind the #77 Greystone car, but the nature of a large field funnelling its way through the opening sequence of corners saw Meakin shuffled back a handful of places as the 18-year-old remained cautious of taking damage in the melee.
Once underway again, Meakin was able to hold on to the tail of the lead group and maintain a slight cushion over multiple champion Charles Weerts until a second interruption brought the pack back together after 30 minutes of racing. While some of those ahead of him opted to take an immediate driver change while the pace was being controlled, Meakin rose as high as 13th on the road, but Greystone were obliged to fall in line with the strategy and, after a couple more laps, the #77 was in the pits for Kelly to take over behind the wheel with the team having allayed any concerns over exceeding maximum driving time further into the race.
With the varying pit-stop strategies shuffling the order, Kelly rejoined just outside the top 25 and remained there throughout his hour-long stint but, despite having to avoid another driver hitting the wall, moved the #77 back into the top five in class. The driver changes again had the effect of rearranging the leaderboard, with O’Brien rejoining in 25th — but in the middle of a seething pack of cars, where positions seemed to change with every lap. By the time the chequered flag fell, the Greystone car was 24th on the road and sixth in the Silver Cup class as O’Brien hunted down the #42 Audi to the end.
The result capped a good week for Meakin, with the Briton having taken a second McLaren Trophy win of the season in the series’ final round at Paul Ricard. Partnering regular co-driver Harry Burgoyne, Meakin helped propel the #68 SMC Motorsport-run Artura Trophy machine to victory in race two of the weekend, even as his soon-to-be Greystone GT partners Kelly and O’Brien claimed race one and the 2025 championship crown.
“Making my debut in GT World Challenge was an amazing experience, being on the ‘big stage’ and competing against the world’s leading GT drivers. It was certainly an eye-opener taking the start and going into the first corner with 60 cars on the grid. Overall, I’m super happy with the results we achieved, but just as important was what I learned over the weekend to take forward into future races.”
