SD Team racing drivers Nick Jones and Sven Müller end their long wait to get back into British GT action this weekend, and are aiming to extend their strong run of form in the penultimate event of the season at Brands Hatch.
With just two endurance events left to run this year, the two-hour race at the former Formula 1 venue in Kent offers another chance for Jones and Müller to get in amongst the points aboard the Team Parker Racing-run Porsche 911 GT3 R. A full six weeks have passed since the team’s last British GT outing, and both drivers are raring to get back into the action.
Jones and Müller have impressed across the last four British GT races, scoring a top six in every one of the one-hour sprint events held across Oulton Park and Snetterton, elevating the pair to the fringes of the top 10 in the championship points. The #66 Porsche has also featured prominently in the fight for the outright podium, with only an unlucky spin in mixed conditions denying Jones and Müller some silverware at Oulton Park.
The Brands Hatch Grand Prix Circuit also represents something of an outlier on the calendar. While the venue’s shorter Indy Circuit is one of the most-used tracks in the country, the longer 2.4-mile Grand Prix loop is an entirely different beast. With local noise restrictions heavily limiting its use, the track evolves more across a race weekend than any other, threading its way through the woods at high speed with some big elevation changes and blind apex corners. Those same noise rules also prevent any teams from having a pre-event test day, meaning all British GT runners will go into Free Practice on Saturday morning from scratch.
Prior experience of the track can be essential to making a strong start. While Jones has not raced at the venue since 2022, it has featured many times across his career. He has also yet to finish lower than seventh in any British GT race there since 2021. For Müller, it will ironically be one of the British circuits he knows best, with the German having already competed on the track during the GT World Challenge Europe event held there back in May, scoring a podium finish in the process.
Nick Jones says: “Brands Hatch is always a real challenge, even more so when I’ve not driven there for a few years! Regardless, I know the track well enough from the races I have done there and I’ve been watching plenty of Sven’s onboard footage from earlier this year, which just reminds you have mega the Grand Prix loop is. It’s so fast, and requires real bravery, so I’m really looking forward to dialling myself back into it. Sven’s already well up to speed and the team has been doing a great job this year, so it’s a great chance for us to turn up and show what we’ve got.”
Sven Müller adds: “I’m really looking forward to Brands Hatch, it’s one of my favourite UK tracks and having already raced there this year in the GT World Challenge I feel up to speed and already with a bit of practice. It’s a great circuit, fast and quite narrow, which makes it a challenge. It’s also a very short event, just two days with not much practice so we need to be spot on in terms of setup and driver adjustment from the start. It will make for a fast-paced weekend and hopefully we can make the most of our track time and get another strong result.”
The weekend at Brands Hatch gets underway with Free Practice and Pre-Qualifying on Saturday morning, ahead of Qualifying at 15:55 that afternoon. Sunday begins with a short Warm-Up, before the start of round seven, with the two-hour race scheduled to go green at 13:00. All sessions will feature live timing, while Qualifying and the race will be available live on both Sky Sports F1 and the GT World YouTube channel.
