Jones and Malvern were denied the chance to compete at the last round at Silverstone due to a string of gearbox issues with their Porsche 911 GT3 R on Saturday. Despite the Team Parker Racing crew sourcing a fresh gearbox and working through the night to fit it in time for race day on Sunday, a further fault with the gear actuator meant the car sadly couldn’t race.
It was a bitter blow, especially after Malvern had put the car fastest overall during Friday testing. The team had also completed a test alongside Pirelli prior to the weekend to get to the bottom of the tyre issues that had been holding the car back.
With the Porsche now repaired and refreshed, Jones and Malvern are busy gearing up for this weekend’s round at Donington Park, which will again feature a single three-hour endurance race.
The Derbyshire track has traditionally been a happy hunting ground for the pair, who celebrated their breakthrough GT3 victory at the track when racing a Bentley Continental GT3 back in 2020. It was also the site of the pair clinching the 2018 Pro-Am championship title during their days running a Mercedes-AMG GT4.
The Team Parker Racing Porsche figured strongly in the times at the track last year, with Malvern producing the fastest qualifying lap of the weekend. Both Jones and Malvern are hoping to carry that sort of form on this time around.
Nick Jones said: “Both Scott and I are really up for Donington Park, and we’re planning to come out fighting! We’ve had a lot of bad luck thrown at us already this season with the tyre issues and the gearbox, so we’re surely due a change in fortune sooner rather than later. On the tyre front, it seems that higher ambient track temperatures help us, so we’d love a scorcher of a weekend… whether we’ll get it or not is another matter! But most of all we’re due a good result. The team is working hard, Scott’s driving great and was so fast at Donington last year. All the ingredients are there for us to bounce back this weekend.”
Scott Malvern added: “Silverstone was a real low, especially after all the hard work the team put in to try and get us out for the race, but you get these things in motorsport and it’s just about picking ourselves up and going again. I’m excited to get back out at Donington Park – it’s a track that’s been kind to us in the past and particularly suits the Porsche due to its mixture of flowing medium-speed corners and tight hairpins. Obviously, we couldn’t tell exactly how much progress we’d made with the setup at Silverstone, but we know the slightly warmer temperatures help us with the tyres, and the forecast looks pretty good for the race. We definitely understand the car better now than we did at the start of the year, and Nick’s doing a great job. Hopefully we can put it all together and enjoy a strong weekend at Donington.”
The British GT weekend at Donington Park gets underway with two free practice sessions on Saturday before qualifying at 16:05. Sunday begins with warm-up at 09:10 and the three-hour race start is scheduled for 12:40. There will be live timing throughout the weekend via tsl-timing.com, and both qualifying and the race will be streamed live across both the British GT website and GT World YouTube channel.
