News 26/03/00

After having tested on Thursday and Friday before the race weekend at Barcelona on 25th & 26th. The team were up against it on Saturday, after an elusive electrical gremlin had destroyed the drivers' qualifying run down to just 3 laps, putting the MBR972 MkII at the back of the grid.

The crew worked through most of that night virtually checking all the wiring on the car. The long hours proved worthwhile the next morning, when in the warm up the lap times placed the car 11th overall and 2nd in class.

Nicke Blom started the race for the Team with William Hewland taking over for the second half.

Between them they drove the MBR972 from the back of the grid, out of 22 starters up to 8th overall and leading the SR2 lights class by 60 seconds after having had both pit stops. The crew had also managed to gain a place for the drivers by doing an outstanding pit stop. The next contender in class behind the MBR car was the Pilbeam but it still had one pit stop to go. So with just 20 minutes of the race left to run it looked like the win was theirs for the taking. But unfortunately, whilst William was in the seat he noticed a problem starting to occur with the car and slowed his pace in avoidance, just before a wheel came off the car.

Team manager Mark Bailey said afterwards 'We have no idea what actually happened with the wheel until we get the car back to our pit garage. All I can say is that we are all very disappointed, the whole team, drivers and crew have worked so hard this weekend, and with all the preparation leading up to the race. We had the victory in the bag until the incident happened, we all worked hard for this win. But it now confirms what I have always known, that with the right combination of drivers and crew the car is very very capable of beating the Pilbeams and Tampolis, so we'll be looking forward to Monza, and a good result even though it is the Italians home race.'