Alex O’Grady believes consistency proved decisive as the KMR Sport driver completed an “almost perfect year” by securing the 2026 GB4 Drivers’ Championship at Brands Hatch.
The Irishman entered his second season in the championship aiming to build on the experience gained during his rookie campaign and ultimately emerged with three victories, nine podiums, four fastest laps and two pole positions. More importantly, O’Grady became one of only two drivers to finish every race and recorded a championship-leading 20 top-10 finishes.
That consistency allowed him to withstand a sustained late-season challenge from Elite Motorsport’s Fred Green and eventually complete the year 33 points clear of his closest rival. Furthermore, O’Grady mathematically secured the championship one race early after finishing second in Brands Hatch Race 2, before eighth in the reverse-grid finale completed his title-winning season.
O’Grady: “We’ve worked towards it all year”
O’Grady arrived at Brands Hatch with a 49-point advantage over Green, while Dayton Coulthard, Enzo Hallman and Thomas Ingram Hill also retained mathematical chances of taking the title.
Green responded by taking both pole positions and winning the opening race, but O’Grady continued doing what had carried him to the top of the standings throughout the year by limiting the points lost to his closest rival. He then secured the championship in Race 2 after passing Ingram Hill at the start and remaining second throughout.
O’Grady said, “It’s amazing, we’ve worked towards it all year. Even going from last year into this year, I didn’t think that we’d be able to achieve that. But we’ve done it in the end, we’ve been consistent all year long, always in the top five, always scoring points as well, and the only driver in the grid to score points in every race. So it’s just been a mega job by the whole team, and I’m just so happy.”
A tense final race before title celebrations
Although O’Grady entered Race 2 knowing a podium would settle the championship, the final step proved far from straightforward.
An oil spill on the formation lap delayed the start while marshals treated the circuit, adding another variable to a race in which the championship leader already had little to gain from taking unnecessary risks. Once racing began, O’Grady immediately moved ahead of Ingram Hill and into the position he needed.
Green disappeared up the road at the front, but Ingram Hill remained close enough behind to ensure O’Grady could not relax completely. Dust from the treated oil also created difficult visibility on the main straight, while a couple of mistakes during the closing laps added further tension.
O’Grady explained, “The last two laps were quite intense because you had the dust down main straight and Fred was always putting it in my eyes, so that wasn’t nice! And then the last corner too, a couple of the laps, I missed a gear and then went wide, nearly onto the grass. So that was quite sketchy as well with Tom behind me.
“But you know, when I crossed the it was just relief and the two hands out of the cockpit came up! I was just so happy and to see the team there, all the emotions and the tears, it was just amazing.”
Consistency leaves rivals few opportunities
O’Grady’s championship was not built solely at Brands Hatch. His ability to continually take points throughout the year meant rivals rarely received opportunities to make significant gains, even during weekends where they possessed stronger outright pace.
His biggest championship swing came at Snetterton. Green encountered problems while leading the opening race, and O’Grady capitalised before adding another major result later in the weekend. The KMR Sport driver left Norfolk with a 70-point advantage, giving him the cushion that ultimately proved crucial when Green responded with a strong Donington Park round and then dominated the opening two races at Brands Hatch.
O’Grady recognised that his measured approach occasionally meant accepting a position rather than pursuing a higher finish at unnecessary risk. However, he believes that decision-making ultimately separated his campaign from those of his rivals.
O’Grady explains why restraint mattered
O’Grady’s willingness to settle for the available result rather than force every opportunity became one of the defining characteristics of his title-winning campaign.
O’Grady said, “There’s races where I think, yeah, I could have finished P5 instead of P6. But I mean, that’s the same reason why I was so consistent, because I wasn’t always going for it. Fred sometimes, especially at the start [of the season], maybe went for it a bit too much and ended up losing his wing or something and losing a lot of points.
“So that’s really what’s kept me in it. And overall every race has been positive, we never left a race weekend thinking, oh, we could have done a lot better or we lost too many points. It’s just been consistent and an almost perfect year.”
That approach meant O’Grady finished every race and placed inside the top 10 on 20 occasions. Even as Green’s late-season form intensified and reduced what had once been a substantial championship lead, O’Grady continued scoring enough to keep the title under his control.
Mills credits O’Grady’s second-year development
The title also continued KMR Sport’s remarkable record in GB4. O’Grady’s success gives Mills’ team a fifth championship in as many seasons, following three consecutive Teams’ titles between 2022 and 2024 and Tom Mills’ Drivers’ Championship in 2023.
For Mills, O’Grady’s decision to remain with KMR Sport for a second campaign proved central to the result. The continuity allowed both driver and team to build on what they had learned together in 2025 rather than start again with a new partnership.
Mills commented, “It’s huge, really, to get another Drivers’ Championship. Obviously the first one was with my son, but to do it with a customer is just amazing. We’ve worked for this for two years with Alex. He was loyal to us over the winter and stayed with the team, and that continuity was so important. He’s just got better and better as a driver and it’s an amazing result for us.”
“He knows when to push and when not to push”
Mills also believes O’Grady’s development became clearest in how he approached risk. The speed had already existed during his first season, but the KMR Sport boss saw a driver increasingly capable of judging when a move or additional push carried enough reward to justify the danger.
Mills said, “You can still be unlucky, some teams have been unlucky, not with any fault of anybody. It’s motorsport and things go wrong, and we’ve been lucky this year that hasn’t happened.
“But as a driver for Alex, he knows when to push and when not to push. He knows when to take the points and when he needs to be faster and take a little bit more risk. And I think in his second year with us, that’s something he’s got much better at.”
That maturity became particularly valuable during the middle and final stages of the season, when O’Grady increasingly focused on protecting his points advantage rather than matching every aggressive move from his rivals.
Snetterton showed O’Grady’s maturity
Mills pointed specifically to Snetterton as an example of how O’Grady had changed from his rookie campaign.
Mills explained, “Maybe in the first year there were a few times he would take a move on that was a little bit dodgy, and he would lose points over it. But this year, he’s played the percentage game when he needed to. Mid-season, at Snetterton, yes Fred had some bad luck, but Alex was really fast anyway. He had a pole that weekend anyway. Since then, he’s basically made sure he stayed on the track and he’s taken the rewards.”
That approach carried through to the Brands Hatch title decider. Green had the pace to win, but O’Grady understood that attempting to follow him carried little championship benefit. Instead, he concentrated on staying ahead of Ingram Hill and securing the result required.
The strategy lacked the drama of a last-lap title fight, but it reflected the same judgement that had allowed O’Grady to lead the championship for so much of the season.
GB3 the target after championship success
O’Grady will now turn his attention towards progressing further up the single-seater ladder. Winning the GB4 Championship brings a £50,000 contribution from MotorSport Vision towards a GB3 programme should he secure a seat for next season, providing an important boost as he works to assemble the necessary budget.
O’Grady said, “It definitely helps my chances getting the 50 grand as well. With the budget being so high in GB3 now, we’re definitely going to have to work on that over the winter and see if we get an opportunity.”
The funding does not guarantee a move, but it gives O’Grady a stronger foundation as he begins discussions over 2027. After proving himself across two GB4 campaigns, the next logical step would be GB3, where he would face a considerably larger financial and competitive challenge.
Mills hopes O’Grady earns a GB3 opportunity
Mills believes the newly crowned champion has demonstrated the qualities required to take that next step. O’Grady’s second season produced not only stronger results but also the race management and judgement that allowed him to withstand Green’s challenge without surrendering the championship advantage he had built.
Mills said, “He has some really good sponsors on the car and hopefully, from his results today, they might well get behind him even more. We’d all like to see him in GB3, wouldn’t we? I think for any GB3 team out there now, Alex would be a really good asset to them. So let’s see, hopefully his phone starts ringing, and he can sort of deal over the winter because he deserves it.”
For KMR Sport, that progression would also underline the value of the two-year development process that ultimately produced another Drivers’ Championship.
An “almost perfect year”
O’Grady’s final 33-point margin does not completely capture how tightly Green pushed him during the closing rounds. However, it does reflect why O’Grady became champion. He rarely left points available through unnecessary mistakes, maximised the opportunities that came his way and reached Brands Hatch with enough of an advantage to absorb his rival’s strongest weekend.
The pace delivered three victories, nine podiums, four fastest laps and two poles, but the consistency surrounding those headline results ultimately defined his year. O’Grady finished every race, recorded 20 top-10 finishes and avoided the damaging non-scores that affected several of his rivals.
After learning when to attack and when to accept the available points, O’Grady turned his second GB4 campaign into the “almost perfect year” required to become the 2026 champion.
