Balfe Motorsport news 2006-01-26

BALFE TEAM GETTING TO KNOW NEW SALEEN S7R

The Balfe Motorsport team is in the middle of a full winter schedule which has seen the team completely strip its new Saleen S7R of every nut and bolt in readiness for the forthcoming FIA GT season.

The Lincolnshire team has taken the car back down to its bare chassis and is beginning to rebuild the 650bhp machine and has started to develop certain areas to make life easier.

"The guys in the team were desperate to start stripping the car down as soon as it arrived," said Shaun Balfe. "But, Dad (team boss David Balfe) wanted to do at least one run in it to see what we had, which is why we had the test at Donington Park before Christmas."

"We sat down not long after the test and wrote out the job list for what needs doing to it, it was a long list! We've got the car right down to its bare minimum at the minute and we're working through a few things to make life a bit easier should we have to do large amounts of work at the circuit during a race weekend. Just making things fit a little bit better and making sure that everything that far into the car is properly sorted before it starts to go back together," added Balfe.

The team is focused on making sure that the car is in the best possible state of preparation before it hits the circuits in late March or early April.

"We are aware that the start of the season isn't really that far away, especially with the amount of work that we've got to do," said Balfe. "But the whole team is incredibly serious about the GT1 entry and we all want to make sure that the car is the best it can be before we go out testing."

"We know from building up the Mosler from scratch that by getting everything right at this point we can save ourselves a lot of time when we finally get out testing," he added.

An announcement on the driver line-up for the Saleen should be ready in the next couple of weeks, with final negotiations underway.

"We have had a lot of interest from some very well known drivers, which is great for the team as it means we've got the reputation of running a good car. We have some more things to sort out but we're hoping to announce the line-up very shortly," added, Balfe.

-bms-