Nick Jones and Scott Malvern fought to a fifth-place finish in the opening Michelin Le Mans Cup round of the season at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya last weekend, banking a solid haul of points on an otherwise tough weekend.
The pair began their new partnership with the Danish High Class Racing team on a positive note by battling into the top five in the first event of the year, the pair’s Porsche finishing as the top non-Ferrari runner, on a weekend where the Italian machines were firmly on top with the championship’s early balance of performance settings.
The SD Sealants-backed Porsche 911 GT3 R 992 struggled for power along Barcelona’s long straights, and to complete the package was carrying also a substantial amount of weight, which made life against the faster Ferraris tough. Pre-event testing was hindered by some brake issues, but they were cured come the start of the race weekend proper on Friday.
Despite the deficit to the Ferraris, Jones and Malvern kept the car around the top six places during practice, before Jones took the wheel for qualifying, lining the #18 car up seventh for Saturday’s 110-minute race, despite his best lap being an impressive 1.2 seconds faster than he’d achieved at the same circuit last season.
With all eyes forward at the start, Jones immediately got stuck in, picking his way through traffic when the pack was scattered by a collision between some LMP3 cars ahead to run an early fifth. Jones then set about defending from Frederic Jousset’s Kessel Racing Ferrari, however Jousset would find a way past using the 296 GT3’s superior power.
Jones was holding sixth when the safety car made its first appearance of the year to clean up a handful of LMP3 cars that had hit trouble and each other – around the circuit. When racing resumed, there was only a handful of laps before the pit window, and Jones dived in to hand to Pro driver Malvern at the first opportunity.
A well-timed stop from the team got Malvern back out in sixth, and right on the tail of Alex Aka in the Steller Motorsport Audi R8 GT3. Malvern closed to within touching distance of the Audi, but his efforts to pass were stunted by a second safety car period, which only left a few minutes of the race remaining when action could commence again.
Malvern pushed as hard as he could, but fell just 0.45s shy of the German car at the flag. However, the places were reversed after the event, with the Audi being handed a time penalty for straying beyond track limits too many times, elevating Jones and Malvern to a hard-earned fifth, as Ferraris locked out the top four spots. It is hoped the balance will be redressed ahead of the next round at Circuit Paul Ricard on May 3/4.
Nick Jones said: “Overall, I’m quite pleased because we maximised what we could achieve under the circumstances this weekend. Obviously, it’s disappointing that the Ferraris were so fast, and hopefully that will be sorted for the next round. I’m pleased with my performance, and looking at the times there’s been definite progress this weekend. The start of the race was tricky with a the LMP3 cars ahead spinning off here and there, and plenty for me to avoid, but the aim was simply to try and keep things clean and stay in the hunt. The team did a great job for our first race together, and to come away with fifth is a decent result. It’s some nice early points, plus the car’s in great shape. Hopefully we can keep making progress across the course of the year and the results will start to come sooner rather than later.”
Scott Malvern said: “It wasn’t an easy weekend by any means, but I think we can be quite pleased with the way we executed the race and fifth was pretty much the limit for this one. We weren’t really in the same race as the Ferraris, so we just had to concentrate on what we could control and as a team we did that really well. Nick showed great progress to go faster than he’s ever been around Barcelona, despite the car being actually slower than last year, and he managed a tricky opening stint really well by staying out of trouble. When I got in we had the edge on the Audi, which had ruined its tyres, but the safety car prevented me from making a pass, the result was justified in the end though with the penalty. We’ll move on from this, and hope for a few changes to the BoP for circuit Paul Ricard.”
