Team News from Lister

From Vallelunga to the Middle East for the final two rounds ofthe FIA GT Championship – first at Dubai then Bahrainjust one week later.

The first thing to check in Dubai was the engine – thediagnosis was correct; the failure was caused bydamage to the oil pump belt. However, this caused moredamage within the engine so the team fitted a newengine (old spec.) for Dubai and Bahrain.

Once again, a new track for both the drivers and the team buta good set up was quickly found, both drivers had a lot oflaps in the car and Justin qualified in 10th position.

The race started In temperatures around 26 degrees but witha cooling breeze – the drivers felt it was not exceptionallyhot in the car but hot enough to use a driver coolboxsystem. Justin completed the first hour.

Towards the end of this hour he was lapping in the 1.57’s (the sameas his qualifying time), only half a second off the fastestlap of the race, and once again showing that in raceconditions the Storm GT is extremely competitive.

Liz took over, the team just re-fuelling the car with no tyrechange. After half an hour she was starting to sufferfrom the heat inside the cockpit.

After 30 minutes she was on the radio to Laurence and came to the pits after40 minutes to hand over to Justin. Unfortunately, thiswas just before a safety car period so, when all the othercars made their pit stops on the hour under the safetycar losing no on-track time, we lost a lap.

Justin drove for the final hour and twenty minutes which madeinteresting viewing – as he was now a lap behind theleaders he moved over to let the Corvette past.

However, the Corvette then proceeded to hold him up –the Lister was quicker on track. Unfortunately, Justinthen had a spin, just touching the barrier so , thinking itwas all over, he came into the pits slowly – but the onlyproblem was a flat-spotted front tyre and superficialbodywork. It was a very short stop and he was back ontrack to the end of the race.

The Storm finished 7th, an equal best for this year; a goodrace which showed the competitiveness of the GT car against the rest of the field.

Next stop Bahrain – just a short boat ride up the coast!