MD Nick Jones competed in the first round of the British GT Championship at Brands Hatch last weekend. With very little testing time under their belts in the borrowed Ginetta G55 car it was always going to be a baptism of fire for Nick & co-driver Scott Malvern but there were some encouraging signs of good pace from both drivers in the two pre-race practice sessions.
Unfortunately, that was as good as got for the pairing and the team on this opening weekend. A minor incident in qualifying compromised performance and saw the pair qualify in 11th place of 14 GT 4 cars. Then a collision with a faster GT3 Aston Martin Vantage car of Phil Dryburgh, which was trying to make up time after a punishment stop and go penalty for an incident on the first lap, brought a premature and disappointing end to proceedings for Nick & Scott.
Nick commented afterwards: “I am extremely disappointed as I was keeping out of the way as much as possible when the faster GT3’s were coming through and I don’t think there is anything more I could have done to have avoided the incident.
“I’m upset not just for myself but for Scott and the rest of the team as well because everybody has worked very hard to come this far but that’s motorsport and now we just have to put it behind us and look forward to the next event at Rockingham in a couple of weeks.”
Examination of the on-board camera footage and the subsequent TV coverage proved that Nick was not at fault for the incident which removed his car plus another GT4 car and resulted in a spectacular air borne flying display from Dryburgh’s Aston Martin which sustained considerable damage.
