Race Report
Donington Park
2004 British GT Championship - Rounds 1-2

Preparation For Donington Park
Team Jedi had a challenging build up to the Donnington Park weekend. A series of engine and gearbox issues prevented any real testing. Indeed it was only in the few days before the meeting that the team knew for sure that the car was in a state where it would be possible to enter the race! ‘We just had one problem, after another’ Commented team driver Frazer Corbyn, ‘they were not that serious, but they just stopped us getting any testing done’.

In the free practice during Saturday morning the team had more problems. Rob Horsfield span the car off, causing some minor body work damage and Frazer Corbyn experienced an engine overheating problem during his testing time. The team then had to work flat out (with some very useful technical assistance from the head of Jedi Racing Cars, John Corbyn), in order ensure the car would not overheat and be reliable for qualifying and the race.

Qualifying
Qualifying for race one was done by Rob Horsfield. Following his earlier spin, Rob was very careful and did just enough to qualify the car safely.(15th in class, 29th out of 31 overall) He brought the car back early in order to allow the car to cool down before the second qualifying session.

In Qualifying 2, Frazer Corbyn took the car out on slick tyres with the track moist to say the least. For a considerable time Frazer had the car amazingly in 3rd position overall! Then as the track dried out, the big cars all put in faster times, even so Frazer still finished with the car 9th in class and 22nd overall!

Race 1
The team had decided to focus on getting the car to the end of the race. Both Rob and Frazer drove at a pace they felt was going ensure a finish in the teams first ever GT race.
Rob’s best race lap was a 1 min 24.221 seconds; Frazer achieved a best of 1 Minute 19.855 seconds. The final classification was 10th in class, 23rd overall.

Race 2
Frazer started the race in slippery conditions and drove a solid first stint. Rob took over with the track now dry, although there was a serious oil spillage from one of the TVR’s within a few laps. The race was ended as the heavens opened and the track was very slippery. In the last lap Rob span 3 times trying to recover the car to the pits. Luckily this did not stop the car being classified as 9th in class and 19th overall. Frazer’s best time was a 1 min 18.924 seconds; Rob’s was a 1 min 20.131 seconds.

The team improved in all areas from race 1 to race 2 and is looking ensure a significant improvement is made before rounds 3 and 4 at Mondello Park in Ireland.

Rob Horsfield said,"we could not realistically have expected a better result than this. With no testing, and several ongoing problems to solve, the team did a great job, just to make sure we finished both races."