Barwell Motorsport driver Hugo Cook has reinforced his rising star potential by being named as the Lamborghini Squadra Corse GT3 Junior Driver for the 2026 season.
Cook finished second in the British GT Championship last season at the wheel of a Barwell-run Huracan GT3 EVO2 and also made the step up to the Pro class of the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup with the Surrey team, impressing with his pace and racecraft against the world’s best GT3 drivers.
Performances such as these earned cook a spot on the Young Driver Shootout at Misano in Italy last November, where he excelled to beat a field of top talent to be named as the GT3 Junior Driver for 2026.
The GT3 Junior shootout put the drivers through an intensive race weekend simulation starting with a 19-lap practice session (15 of which were timed, with the first 10 using fresh tires) before moving onto a qualifying simulation consisting of 17 laps (15 of which timed) following a technical debrief. A further engineering debrief then preceded the race simulation, for a total of 24 laps, using the same set tires as the qualifying runs.
Over the course of the year, hand-selected drivers were assessed by Lamborghini Squadra Corse’s technical staff, with specific evaluations on performance, progression, consistency, technical feedback, physical fitness and professionalism both at and away from the track. The drivers were aided in each step by Young Driver Programme partners, Scuola Federale ACI.
Cook will now benefit from a package of factory support from Lamborghini Squadra Corse to aid his development across the 2026 campaign.
“The Young Driver Programme has provided many drivers the platform on which to build their professional careers, whether with Lamborghini or elsewhere, and we are proud to continue developing drivers of the future through our assessments and shootouts. Looking at the 2025 winners, I want to extend my congratulations to Hugo Cook, who excelled in the assessment and in the end-of-year shootout, against strong competition.”
