FIA GT Oschersleben 21/09/2003

Sumpter and Jordan take sixth in Germany

Mark Sumpter and Mike Jordan scored an excellent sixth place in the Paragon Porsche-backed Porsche 911GT3RS during the eighth round of the FIA GT Championship at Oschersleben (Germany) over the weekend (20/21 September).

To complete a strong weekend for the team, the second Paragon-supported car of David and Godfrey Jones also had a good race and finished 11th, narrowly missing out on a top 10 result. "It was a fantastic weekend," reported Sumpter.  After a series of dramas in previous races, the Paragon team arrived at the German track hopeful of a good weekend despite being in unfamiliar surroundings. For all of the drivers, the Oschersleben track was a new challenge. "The circuit took a bit of learning," reckoned Mark.  

The weekend started well in qualifying when the Sumpter/Jordan car posted eighth best time and the Jones car took 14th slot within the super-competitive N-GT category.  "The car was faultless in qualifying and we worked through the set-up, tuning the car to the circuit," said Sumpter. "In fact, both cars went right through the weekend without any problems.   

The race on Sunday ran for three hours and the pace was fierce from the start as the Porsches and Ferraris battled for N-GT honours. Despite the level of international competition, Sumpter and Jordan were delighted to work through to sixth place after a great team effort. "All of the favourites in N-GT finished, so we didn't inherit any places at all. We split the pair of works-backed Porsches, one of them was in front of us and one was behind us," said Mark.  

"We did the best that we could have done and we picked up our pace all weekend," said Mark. "Everyone was really happy with the team's performance and the car was spot on all weekend."  

With the Jones' brothers also enjoying a trouble free weekend, the team will now switch its focus to the penultimate race of the season at the Estoril circuit in Portugal over the first weekend of October.