The SD teams-backed Team Parker Racing team certainly made its mark on British GT’s showpiece event, the three-hour Silverstone 500, by securing a strong starting position on the 43-car grid, and then Jones running comfortably inside the top 10 before being the innocent victim of a mistimed lunge, the resulting contact damaging the Porsche’s rear diffuser and essentially putting Jones and Malvern out of the running.
Regardless, the fact the pair came through what turned out to be an incredibly challenging weekend with a race finish at all spoke volumes, as Saturday almost became a complete washout with both free practice sessions and qualifying being hit by persistent rain. The conditions deteriorated so badly that qualifying eventually had to be abandoned due to rivers of rainwater running across the track and standing water making it too dangerous for the cars to run. That meant the grid for Sunday’s race had to be set by combining each driver’s fastest time from second practice.
And that was no bad thing, seeing as both Jones and Malvern had shown impressive pace in the soaked previous session, with Malvern’s best putting the car fourth overall on the timesheet. That, allied to a strong run from Jones, meant the pair would start Sunday’s race from eighth on the grid – their highest combined qualifying position since 2021.
With Sunday’s race taking place on a dry track under bright skies, neither driver really knew where they would stand considering neither had done a single lap of the track in the dry with the brand-new car, but it turned out to be ideal conditions as Jones made a good getaway and immediately asserted himself within the top 10.
Jones fought hard over the opening 20 minutes, pushing to gain places at every opportunity, but his progress was halted when he was the innocent victim of a wild lunge by the Garage 59 McLaren GT3 running behind, which hit the rear of the Porsche hard in the braking zone for Brooklands corner. The contact spun Jones across the track and fortunately the rest of the chasing pack managed to avoid the Porsche, at least limiting the damage.
However, the hit caused significant damage to the car’s rear diffuser, which is essential for balancing the aerodynamics of the car. Along with worsening handling, the Porsche then began to suffer with extreme rear tyre degradation, meaning the team had to pit mid-race to make what repairs they could, bolting on an older second-hand diffuser purely to get to the finish.
The limitations and resulting delay meant Jones and Malvern made it to the finish of the three-hour race 13th in class which, considering how much had been thrown at them, represented an impressive team effort.
Nick Jones said: “This weekend was all about going out and having a bit of fun, a bit of an adventure, and we certainly did that across the weekend! Saturday was pretty wild, but we ended up getting a good starting place for Sunday, and then the race turned out to be even wilder! It’s a real shame about the accident as I was feeling good in the car and we were going well and looked set to fight for a great result. Considering I’d not done a single lap in the dry, the car was awesome and we were flying, but the damage basically put us out of the running after 25 minutes. But we can still take a lot of positives from the event; we still got to the finish, the car was on rails all weekend, and we gave a really good account of ourselves in what was probably the most competitive British GT grid ever assembled. Now the preparation starts for our next race… on Le Mans 24 Hour weekend!”
Scott Malvern added: “I think we can be really pleased with the performance we showed at Silverstone. Sure, the result didn’t go our way, but overall the team did a great job, Nick drove perhaps the best he ever has at Silverstone and was fighting with some of the fastest Am drivers out there, and then we still saw the chequered flag despite being rammed! The diffuser damage made the car such a handful, and then we started eating through rear tyres and just had to stop to fit some form of replacement diffuser to even be able to continue. It was a great team effort, and now we reset and go again for the next Le Mans Cup event at Le Mans.”
Nick and Scott will next be in action for the second round of the Michelin Le Mans Cup, which takes place at the Circuit de la Sarthe, with two races running on the undercard of the world-famous Le Mans 24 Hours on June 9/10.
