SD Sealants-backed racing drivers Nick Jones and Scott Malvern get their second Michelin Le Mans Cup campaign underway at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya this weekend, beginning their new partnership with the High Class Racing team.
After a lot of hard work across the winter, Jones and Malvern will return to the Le Mans Cup grid aboard their SD-liveried Porsche 911 GT3 R 992, and for this season switch from Team Parker Racing to join the Danish High Class squad. To ease the transition, the pair have retained the services of some of their key technical personnel from last year, who have moved across to High Class to assist with the running of the Porsche, including both their engineer and number 1 mechanic.
The new partnership has already worked well in testing, with Jones and Malvern getting some crucial pre-season miles aboard the car ahead of the season-opener in Spain. They will be up against eight other entrants in the GT3 category, and will be amongst 29 LMP3 racing prototypes on a stacked 38-car grid.
Barcelona is both a track the pair know well, and have enjoyed success at before, finishing second there last season – one of three podium finishes Jones and Malvern would celebrate across the season on their way to fifth in the championship standings.
For this year, hopes are high for an improvement on that, with the drivers and the team now very familiar with the championship, the car and the circuits they will race on across the forthcoming seven rounds.
Nick Jones says: “I’m feeling really good about this year, and I’m just really excited to get going and see where we are after the first few sessions at Barcelona. Last year was a very tough one as the 992-generation Porsche was very new to us and we were learning about it and discovering new things with setup constantly while we raced, but this year we have a lot of familiarity, and bringing some of the lads across gives us some continuity. I’ve also worked really hard over the winter to get into much better shape, shedding almost 30kg, and from what I’ve seen so far working with the team at High Class has been great. I like the Barcelona track, and it’s one we’ve gone well at before, so hopefully we can make a string start to the season this weekend.”
Scott Malvern adds: “A lot of things are looking very positive ahead of the start of this season. The switch to High Class has gone really well and everybody at the team seems very switched on and motivated, plus keeping Ben and Joe with us this year gives us some familiarity, which can be a real bonus. Nick’s also better prepared for this season than perhaps any other. His pace in testing has been really good and physically he’s in great shape, so that should give us an edge in performance. We were competitive at Barcelona last year and, while we don’t know what the Balance of Performance equalisations measures have in store for this weekend, hopefully we can enjoy an even playing field and go out there to fight for some big points.”
Action for the opening round of the Michelin Le Mans Cup begins with twin testing sessions on Wednesday, before the race weekend gets underway proper with free practice on Friday. Qualifying takes place on Saturday morning, with the 110-minute race set for 17:40 local time (16:40 GMT). All sessions feature live timing via the Le Mans Cup website, and both qualifying and the race will be streamed live on the championship’s YouTube channel.
