British GT Silverstone 15/08/2004

Sumpter and Jordan out of luck

Mark Sumpter and Mike Jordan were out of luck in rounds 11 and 12 of the British GT Championship at Silverstone over the weekend (14/15 August).

Mechanical dramas in both races cost the Paragon Porsche-backed Porsche 911GT3RS any chance of podium finishes.  

Qualifying for the two races went well for the squad, with Mike putting the Paragon Porsche 911 GT3-RS onto the front row for the opening race and Mark taking a competitive sixth place for the second race.  

Jordan got a great start in race one, slotting into second place behind the leading Ferrari. However, a faulty ECU dropped the Porsche away from the leader and Mike brought the car into the pits to try and cure the fault. After turning the engine off and resetting the ECU the car ran faultlessly to the end of the race, with Mark taking over mid-race. Unfortunately, the problems had cost them a lap and they finished down in thirteenth place overall.  

In race two it was Mark's turn to face the bad luck, when a gearbox problem left him stranded out on the circuit on the seventh lap, unable to make it back to the pits.   

“I think we should call the car Christine like the Stephen King book because I’m sure it's cursed!" joked Mike. "For some reason it just always seems to get the little small problems on it and we don’t know why. It’s definitely been a bad weekend for us," added Mark after a frustrating weekend.  

They will now turn attention to races 13 and 14 at Thruxton (Hampshire) on August 30.