Endurance racer Seb Morris made a dramatic - and very unexpected - 11th hour return to the British GT Championship at Silverstone Grand Prix Circuit where the reigning champion reunited with Rick Parfitt Jnr in the category’s biggest race of the year.

With Parfitt Jnr’s regular 2018 team-mate Ryan Ratcliffe sidelined by food poisoning and being prevented from racing by doctors mere hours before the race, 22-year-old MSA Team UK driver Morris, who hails from Marford, was the recipient of a surprising late-morning phone call asking him to pack his crash helmet and race suit.

After a 153-mile dash from Chester to get to Silverstone in time for his scheduled first stint, no sooner had the Welshman set foot inside the garage than he had to get ‘suited and booted’ and climb aboard the No.1 Bentley Continental.

Impressively, Morris acclimatised to the car, the track and the heat of battle with ease and helped Parfitt Jnr post a top six finish in GT3 for Team Parker Racing with the car having started from the back of the grid due to the enforced driver change.

The reunited team-mates did actually take the chequered flag in an incredible fourth place, but an unfortunate penalty for a yellow flag’ infringement dropped the duo back to a nonetheless strong sixth, with Morris’ short-notice performance nothing short of exceptional.

Morris said: “Well that was an unexpected Sunday! I got a call from Rick’s wife Rachel after I’d just finished a run in my local park, it was a nice chilled-out Sunday, and she said ‘we need you at Silverstone, Ryan’s unwell and we need you to drive’. That was at a quarter past 11 and the race started around one o’clock, and I had 153 miles to travel!

“Luckily I had a clear journey, I got to the track and changed into my race suit in the car park, signed-on in the garage with the scrutineer and by the time I was buckling-up my crash helmet Rick was coming into the pits for the first stop! I jumped in, using Rick’s seat, and I was only 0.3 seconds off the pace on my first lap out and ended with the fourth best average stint time.”

Morris added: “I’m really happy with the performance I gave and I hope it’s shown manufacturers like Bentley the job I can do, I was up to speed on my out lap without any time in the car and that’s the sort of thing this job entails sometimes for professional drivers.”