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The Balfe Motorsport team will kick off its
2008 season next weekend as drivers Shaun Balfe and Adam Derbyshire head to
Donington Park, for the opening round of the UK
VdeV Championship.
The Newark Glass Group backed
team will this year be running a Norma M20F chassis in the endurance series
which resembles a scaled down Le Mans prototype. However, with power coming from
a race prepared Honda 2-litre engine, there is plenty of speed available to
Shaun and Adam around the twists ad sweeps of
Donington.
It is the inaugural season for
the VdeV series, following a handful of races last year for British teams to see
what the concept is like. The Balfe team took part in two of the European
Championship events, the Magny-Cours 12 Hour race and the Estoril Six-hour race
at the end of last year, to get a feel for the
series.
The mixture of endurance
tactics and reliability as well as highly developed racing cars was a big draw
the Balfe and the team for this season and he is looking forward to getting to
Donington for the opening three-hour long race.
“I am looking forward to
Donington Park, although, I know it’s not going to
be an easy event for us,” he said. “We know before we get there that we may not
have the outright pace to be the fastest car on the grid in qualifying as we are
still waiting for some of the latest specification parts for the
car.”
“But, we’re not letting that
worry us as we are aiming for reliability and a great race pace. There are so
many other variables, such as driver-pairings and the pit-stops, as well as
reliability, that are more important than taking pole-position, especially over
three hours,” he added.
With the races in the championship varying in
length, it will be crucial for the team to have a strong driver pairing to keep
the pace consistent every time the car goes out on track. Balfe’s new driving
partner is Adam Derbyshire, brother of his former British and
FIA GT partner, Jamie. Adam has experience of the
Norma chassis after racing it in the European series last year and on testing
form the pair should make a formidable team over the course of
2008.
“Adam has helped me get up to
speed with the car in testing and we’ve had some good runs so far,” added Balfe.
“As a team we always aim to prepare the best car possible and I think if we can
aim for being in the top six in qualifying and the podium in the race for the
weekend, then we will be in good shape.”
The team will take to the track on Saturday for
practice and qualifying, before the six-hour race gets underway on Sunday at
3.40pm.
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