During what has been a challenging campaign at times, there’s little denying the level of progress Jones and Malvern have made with their new Porsche 911 GT3 R across the year, and the duo head into the season finale buoyed by their strongest performance of the season last time out at Oulton Park. A first podium of the campaign, a pole position and a further top-five finish marked a superb return in Cheshire, and the Team Parker Racing crew now head back to Derbyshire for another blast around the former British Grand Prix venue.
Jones and Malvern have already shown strongly at Donington this term, with Malvern setting the fastest time of anybody during the Pro qualifying session during the championship’s first visit to the circuit back in July. The pair were looking for a strong finish in that race also, before a gearbox issue ended their hopes early.
However, this time around the entire package – the Team Parker Racing technical crew, the drivers and the car – has moved forward considerably, and the final two-hour race of the season gives the team an extra chance to show exactly how much progress has been made.
Despite their season being hampered by a handful of unlucky results mid-year, Jones and Malvern still go into the final round inside the top-10 in the points.
Nick Jones said: “It’s mad to think we’re already at the final round of the season, and it’s been a real year of learning for all of us, but I’ve loved it. I’m really looking forward to getting back to Donington Park as it’s a track I like a lot and we went really well there earlier in the season. We’ve made big inroads into understanding how to get the most from the Porsche, and last time we ran at the track Scott showed incredible pace in qualifying and it was only an unforeseen mechanical issue that prevented us fighting for a great result. I’m fired up for the season finale, and determined to finish the campaign on a high for all the lads in the team that have worked so hard this year.”
Scott Malvern said: “This season has flown by so fast, it’s hard to believe it’s the last round already, but I can’t wait as I have a good feeling about this weekend. We’ve made so much progress this year with learning about a brand-new car and new setups, and Oulton Park only proved to us that we’re now on the right path and have a great race car to fight with. I think we’ve reached the point now where it doesn’t matter what circuit we’re at, we know we’ll be quick. We’ve got a bit of extra weight to carry this weekend due to the Balance of Performance, but Donington is a nice fast and flowing circuit without many big stops and starts, so I’m hopeful the car will carry it well. Nick’s driving as well as he ever has done, and he showed that in tricky, mixed conditions at Oulton Park. Ultimately there’s no pressure for us this weekend, so we’ll just go out and enjoy it. There are people around us under pressure to fight for titles and there will undoubtedly be mistakes along the way. We just need to run our own race, stay out of trouble and hopefully we can finish the season with a strong result.”
Qualifying for the final round of the Intelligent Money British GT Championship takes place at 16:15 on Saturday, October 16, before the two-hour season finale gets underway on Sunday at 13:00. Live timing will be available all weekend via TSL-Timing.com, and the whole race can be streamed live via the British GT website and YouTube channel.
