I feel quite a unique sadness upon the eve of this article’s publication.

2025 can now officially end because after five awards we’ve reached the climax of the first ever Motornerd Awards – and no, unfortunately the budget did not allow it to arrive in the back of a Cooper as I’d desired.

Incredibly niche reference aside, I think I’ve saved the best till last. We’ve looked at the best team, driver, drive, car and moment of the past 12 months which means there’s only one more thing I need to officially crown: By far the most significant of these token awards, it’s my race of the year!

I know there’s been a trend of me acknowledging the fact that an award has either been an obvious choice or a close one with no in between, and I’m not afraid to admit my hand was tied behind my back yet again for this closing chapter.

You see, ever since I first watched motorsport in 2009 (I think, I really can’t remember) I’ve been encapsulated by the idea of attending a race in person. In 2019 I achieved that small dream at Thruxton for the Andover track’s May meeting of the British Touring Car Championship. I loved it and have returned almost every year.

Had I been a sportscar racing fanatic back then I would’ve been to Silverstone to witness the dying days of LMP1, but alas I missed out by a year. And with COVID forcing Silverstone out of the endurance picture for some time I was held back to Thruxton as my one in person event of the year. Not that I minded, it was good enough for me.

Cut to October 2nd, 2024. Silverstone is announced to have returned to the ELMS calendar, and I waste no time in picking up a weekend ticket for £20 – it’s almost a crime itself that the prices are that low, especially for a track notorious for ramping up attendance costs when a certain circus rolls into the paddock…

Either way, I was heading to my first ever sportscar race.

And boy, did I feel like a kid again.

The sounds, the sights and most importantly the epic 4 hour affair that unfolded in front of a record crowd – 110,000 strong, a figure unexpected for such a series as the ELMS – meant that it was almost rigged for the 4 Hours of Silverstone to be my race of the year.

But really, can you blame me?

I’d wanted to attend a race at Silverstone for as long as I could remember and it was totally worth it in every aspect. The cherry on top was hearing the bliss that is the 7 litre V12 found singing in the back of Jaguar XJR-8 – itself 1987’s Autosport Car of The Year – on Sunday morning as I entered the track. I’ve genuinely never heard something so awesome as that.

The race itself of course was utterly brilliant and I think it would stand as a contender even if I’d decided to remove sentimentality from the equation, with a wet-dry-wet race that saw an incredibly tense final hour as Inter Europol’s #43 of Nick Yelloly hot in the wheel tracks of Dani Juncadella’s IDEC Sport #18 that took victory from eleventh on the grid after the conditions worsened to the point of red-flagging the race.

So there it is, my Motornerd Awards of The Year, and my final article of 2025 itself! I won’t bore you with the worn out cliches of ‘it was tough but so worth it’ even though it was exactly that, I’ll instead wish you a happy Christmas and a wonderful new year!

I’ve been Thomas Groves, thank you so much for reading even but a word of what I have to say on the world of motorsport. I’ll be returning with my Hypercar previews all throughout the first weeks of 2026, and my podcast will make a return – complete with a brand new intro and, get this, an instrumental sting. I’m aiming for a bi-weekly release schedule, and plenty of nerdery.

And perhaps when we return next year for the 2^nd edition of these awards, the climax will indeed be in the back of a Cooper.

image credit: myself (for once)