Photographing the British Hillclimb Championship at Prescott

Prescott Speed Hillclimb manages to combine high speed motorsport with a glorious location. This provides a photogenic background to the efforts of competitors to set their fastest time up 1,127 yards of narrow tarmac. Unlike some hillclimbs, Prescott provides a multitude of different shots – see our photographers guide to Prescott here.

In 2025, I had the benefit of media accreditation at Prescott Hillclimb, which opened up some new angles. However, for 2026 it was spectator side only with Andrew Harbey; this did not prove a major hindrance! The action on Sunday consisted of a practice run for all competitors, followed by two sets of event runs, each concluded with a Top Twelve Run Off where the overall championship points are awarded. We walked up through the open paddock.

Exploring Prescott Hillclimb 

There’s seating at various points alongside the track. Where you can find a good view of the start with a neat Welcome to Prescott banner in the background for photographers.

Our aim for the morning was to walk the full course to the Finish. The elevation at Prescott Hillclimb is around 200 feet. Between Pardon Hairpin and The Esses there’s a nice panning shot with bluebells in the foreground.

Prescott Hillclimb benefits from a return road back to the paddock, so there is no break in the action.

Semi-Circle is a challenging long, very long, right hand bend with a drop down the hill to the left. There’s time to be made (or lost) here and a fine panning shot can be achieved.

British Hillclimb Championship – AM

For the first Run Off we headed down to look back to the exit of Rolt – again a place for fine margins where the slightest deviation off line will impact your time. Alex Coles – the latest young star to emerge in the world of hillclimbing – takes a rather wider line than normal!

Mind you, multiple champion Wallace Menzies (#2) has an equally interesting line! Matt Ryder (#1), champion for the last two years set fastest time in the Run Off by just 0.03 second from Will Hall (#3) with Menzies third.

Returning down the hill I had a quick wander round the paddock with my phone and got a good look at Dean Tighe’s Empire Wraith (hence the livery). Dean is an Australian champion who has brought his car across for the season.

British Hillclimb Championship – PM

For the afternoon runs, we started out below Pardon where some different shots are possible. As ever, what looks like an innocuous and gentle curve becomes more challenging against the clock.

There’s an arty shot of the cars coming down from Ettore’s and looking up at the cars at Pardon.

Most impressive performance of the day was former champion Alex Summers. He managed to get his significantly less powerful 1100cc DJ Firehawk into both Run Offs.

For the second Run Off, we moved to Pardon – Andrew for the dramatic head on shot. I was looking in the opposite direction shooting towards the hairpin. Will Hall took fastest time from Ryder and Menzies by 0.13 second. Fine margins again!

It looks like we have a fascinating year in prospect with well-matched rivals, Ryder, Hall and Menzies going head to head. Next on the calendar is Craigantlet in Northern Ireland before Harewood on May 10^th. PistonClick will be there to record the action.

Photographer’s notes

Prescott Hillclimb probably provides one of the best backdrops to motorsport in the UK. With pretty much access all areas for the spectator photographer, it is a wonderful playground. Andrew and I were using our usual Nikon D780 and D850 respectively and swapped between Nikkor 28-70 f2.8, 24-120 f4 and 70-200 f2.8 lenses during the day.

There’s more images from David and Andrew here.

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