No-one can deny that 2004 has been a difficult year for the Lister Racing team but we must not forget the good points.
LMP – following the loss of a major sponsor in February, the whole programme had to be re-invented. A fantastic last minute deal with the Danish Team, Essex Invest – John Nielson, Casper Elgaard and Jens Moller – gave us the budget for Le Mans. Our brief was to finish – and we did. After that we knew the LMP could go the distance. Justin Keen joined Lister for the LMES rounds that followed; the car was very fast in the wet at Nurburgring – passing the Audis; it was fast in both the Silverstone and Spa races – we just could not get qualifying right!..... and accidents in both races meant we did not finish. There is a lot more still to come from the LMP.
Our hopes for 2005 are to take part in the full LMES series and Le Mans with one car – and maybe throw in some American races.
Also, well advanced in design is a hybrid version of the LMP900 – this will evolve into an LMP1 by 2006. The visuals are stunning – totally different from the current car.
GT – pre-season testing proved that the new engine and 2004 specification Storm was extremely fast in the hands of Tom Coronel; lap times at Le Mans Bugatti faster than any Ferrari – by a couple of seconds. At Monza, in the old car, following Patrick Pearce’s severe accident, Tom still qualified 5th; at Nurburgring, with the older specification engine, his lap times were amongst the leaders.
However, this year’s experience has made us decide one thing, in 2005 the Lister team will compete in the FIA GT Championship with two professional drivers in one of the cars - we are already well advanced in our negotiations with several drivers as well as searching out potential commercial sponsors; we are sure to race at least one, new, 2005 specification Storm and we will challenge for the Championship honours once again.
Customer teams – Lister Italy took delivery of their Storm just days before their first race – the car driven by Stefano Zonca and Angelo Lancelotti; we provided them with the support of two Lister team members and the Storm soon became the fastest car in the Championship (ahead of the Ferrari 575’s) – they finished second in the Championship, just two points behind the winners. They will be competing at Vallelunga in the LMP900 on November 13th. They will also run the Lister Storm GT at the Mil Milhas in Brazil at the end of January.
Finally, there are some exciting changes coming to Lister – all will be revealed shortly.
Partners of the Lister Racing team :Dunlop(www.dunloptyres.co.uk) , UGS (www.ugs.com), www.lasertools.co.uk, Scalextric (www.scalextric.co.uk), Comma Oil (www.commaoil.com), AVE Group (www.avegroup.co.uk), www.racecar.co.uk, Mintex (www.mintex.co.uk) , www.team-zx1.com, Goodridge (www.goodridge.net) , NGK (www.ngk.co.uk ) , K & N Filters
