GT: Ryan Hooker Report

Corvette Drivers bring home the Jensen Motorsport car unscathed

By PH Staff / Tuesday, 20 July 2004 / Loading comments

Ryan Hooker has returned from Rounds 9 & 10 of the British GT Championship with another point on the championship board. The racing at Oulton Park was tempered by bad weather, with heavy downpours on the Saturday providing challenging conditions. But, once again the Team Jensen Corvette made it to the chequered flag in both races scoring a much deserved point in Round 9. After a tumultuous start to the season the team see this as the start of a long term development program.

Saturday afternoon's qualifying was held in wet conditions. "We went out on a full wet setting" reported Ryan, "this was my first proper time in the car in wet conditions. I felt there was good grip from the car from the word go which was good and every lap we seemed to find two seconds, then the session was red flagged due to an incident. This shortened our qualifying and we went back out for just five minutes. I kept finding two seconds, I managed ninth best time in our class (19th overall) - our best qualifying to date, we're not on the back row anymore!"

Ryan started Saturday's race. The track had dried but the ever ominous clouds still loomed overhead. The race started dramatically with a first corner incident taking out a number of the top runners from the NGT class. The safety car was deployed whilst the first corner was cleared, as the green flag dropped Ryan realised he was able to keep an NGT class car behind him and found himself as high as fourth in class and eighth overall, a hugely encouraging moment for the team.

Ryan pitted and handed over to Andrew Ward who brought the car home safely for another finish, eighth in class and collecting a point.

Sunday

An altogether brighter day on Sunday, Andrew started Race 2 which thankfully didn't see a repeat of the first lap carnage of the day before. "Andrew stayed out trouble, had a little spin but settled in to a good pace" said Ryan.

"We pitted him at 25 minutes. We still had a slight vibration through the car, with a front wheel catching I was wondering if we'd have a pop! I was in a big gap on my own for a long time so I could set some nice lap times but after a positive test at Oulton a few weeks ago I would have hoped for a bit better time. I matched my best test time but with the made since I'd have expected better again. Silverstone will be a turning point as to decisions on how we will move forward long term."

Ryan brought the car home ninth in class, just missing out on another point bringing to a close a trying but ultimately encouraging weekend.

The next outing for the Corvette will be at Rounds 11 & 12 of the British GT Championship at Silverstone 13/14/15th August.

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