GruppeM – Donington Park – June 26th

Just Missing The Quickest Period

A blustery, drizzly Saturday at Donington Park was the stage for GruppeM Racing’s first appearance in qualifying on the European stage, with the Porsche 911GT3-RSR.

“I expected the competition to be stiff and it is," explained Jonathan Cocker. "But we’re right up there on pace. It helps to have others from the British championship here as it gives us a real yardstick. We’re around the same pace against each other as we are in the British races.”

Tim Mullen was in a rather novel situation, his usual team mates racing here too, Andrew Kirkaldy and Nathan Kinch sharing the Ferrari 360 GTC that has provided the stiffest competition for the GruppeM car in the British GT Championship.

Rivalry is a good thing in sport and it was certainly the spur for Mullen in the first qualifying session – not that a racing driver ever needs any extra motivation to drive fast! Not only did he want to place the #88 car on class pole position, he also wanted to show both GruppeM and Scuderia Ecosse that his priorities this weekend were in the right place.

N-GT qualifying would prove to be a ding dong battle, with a gaggle of cars battling to match the early session effort from Porsche factory driver Emmanuel Collard, in the all-conquering #50 Freisinger Porsche.

Collard would set a time that would prove to be good enough for provisional pole, but Mullen and GruppeM would be in the hunt for the honours throughout the session.

Tim Mullen effectively fended off the challenge of the second Freisinger car, crewed by a formidable double act of Porsche factory drivers, Lucas Luhr and Sascha Maassen, for the entire session and concentrated on humbling Andrew Kirkaldy in the Scuderia Ecosse Ferrari.

The Ferrari set the initial ‘British GT’ pace though and Mullen had a mark to aim for. And aim he did. His effort was just a couple of hundredths of a second short and the follow-up, that was looking certain to humble the Ferrari, was ruined by a slow moving TVR in the Esses.

“I badly wanted to beat Andrew today,” he said with a grin, “but third isn’t too bad.” There was bad news however, as the second Freisinger car was to leapfrog the British GT pair on its very final lap. Fourth though in this company is a seriously impressive result.

The second qualifying session was treated to a downpour, and there would be only a brief chance to improve times: GruppeM chose instead to concentrate on getting invaluable set-up work done. However, there was a brief ‘window’ when Mike Jordan found a less wet line around Donington Park, but by the time Tim Mullen got back into the RSR, the rain really came down.

"We're a bit frustrated as we missed the window in that second session,” explained Tim Mullen. “We put Jonathan in the car and we intended to leave him out until we saw that anyone went quicker than us. And then all of a sudden the track went really quick and Mike Jordan got up to third.”

So Sunday’s race will see the GruppeM car start from fifth on the N-GT grid, Tim’s best time a few thousandths behind the Scuderia Ecosse Ferrari, and a very impressive effort in the circumstances: Tim’s first time in a Porsche, first time in the wet in a Porsche, and Jonathan’s first FIA GT event.

It’s a three hour event, so another first for Jonathan – his longest event so far. At least the weather forecast suggests better weather ahead.