Zelos pushes through challenging penultimate race weekend

Images: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Dan Zelos secured a double top-five finish in his penultimate 2026 Porsche Sprint Challenge outing at Silverstone. Despite battling illness and dropping to fifth in the standings, he gained valuable track time as well as testing his 2027 Porsche 911 Challenge car.

Qualifying

Despite feeling under the weather, Dan Zelos didn’t let it deter him from his goal for the weekend, though ultimately, multiple red flags and heavy traffic restricted him to a 5th-place start.

Race 1

Race one was hard-fought, although with a promising start, he unfortunately had a battle between two other drivers for third place that pushed Dan back to a respectable fourth.

“I got a good start in race one and was able to hang it around the outside of Kyle-Henney through Copse before out-braking him into Maggotts and Becketts, but after that, it was very much follow-the-leader. If I hadn’t had to defend so much, I think we could have taken the fight to Ethan [Hammerton] for the podium, so I was encouraged by that and pleased to finish fourth.”

Race 2

Motivated despite a streak of initial bad luck, Dan put in a strong effort during a race that resulted in a deadlock. With cars behind him running a similar pace, an offensive push was difficult, and he finished in his starting position.

Dan said, “Race two similarly developed into a bit of a stalemate and I got unlucky with the blue flags working my way through the backmarkers, which denied me the chance to attack towards the end, when we’re often at our strongest.”

Race 3

The third race was unfortunately not without drama. Dan Zelos said, “We then got the set-up wrong for the conditions. I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of driving in the wet, but I wasn’t able to get the Porsche properly stopped on the brakes, meaning I had no confidence going into the corners – it felt like a car I’d never driven before. On top of that, the gearbox had a bit of a moment where it went momentarily into automatic mode, which prevented me from downshifting and sent me straight on at Brooklands, costing me a position.

“That was obviously a disappointing way to finish the weekend, but hopefully, we can put the knowledge we gained at Silverstone to good effect at Brands Hatch GP.

“It hasn’t been the year we’d hoped for overall, but we’ll be putting everything on the line at Brands Hatch and will do our very best to come away with a strong result to end the season in style!”

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