Esperantes back to Donington

On Thursday Nov 24, Team LNT returned to Donington Park for more testing. Having tested one car at Silverstone, the team had two of the revised Panoz Esperante machines out this time.

The morning brought a damp track with both cars daring the icy conditions. Warren Hughes and Lawrence Tomlinson again shared the driving duties, with both cars in the development program - furthering the damper development and chassis set up work.

With no real comparative car for reference lap times it can be difficult to judge real speed in the changeable conditions; however all parties were again impressed with the Panoz grip and power delivery, with the Bosch electronics being outstanding in these circumstances.

Again reliability was the Esperantes strongest card with both cars running faultlessly.

Sportscar sophomore Rob Bell was on hand to attempt to fit in a few laps as an acclimatization run before moving on to Nogaro next week with the team. Rob is a known quality to Team LNT directors Alan Mugglestone and Richard Dean and has already put up an impressive GT debut at the Nurburgring LMES race.

It wasn’t long however until the testing was stopped due to the freezing conditions making it impossible to get any tyre temperature. The resulting unpredictability deemed it not conducive to conclusive development.

The test again was supported by EMT/ Panoz, with the close relationship already yielding positive results for both parties.

Team LNT now moves on to the European leg of the winter program with Nogaro in the south of France and Circuit Catalunya, Spain, booked exclusively.

More development parts are incoming from Georgia and with some new faces behind the wheel in Richard Dean, Rob Bell and Jonny Kane, team LNT are looking forward to further exploring the boundaries of this exciting new project.