The South African Endurance National Championship bought off to an exhilarating start at Zwartkops Raceway with first and second locations lined by simply eight seconds after 209 laps and 4 hours of onerous, sizzling racing.
Thrilling start for Arangies/Weston
Charl Arangies and Clint Weston introduced their Stradale Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 residence forward of the hard-charging Stuart White/Xolile Letlaka Into Africa Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo. White was catching Arangies at two seconds per lap after the ultimate security automotive however ran out of time to problem for the win.
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In their first ever endurance race, rookies CJ Blackman, Jean Paul Briner and Anthony Hoare received the Index of Performance in their Tradecor Steel Backdraft-Lexus Roadster.
Practice and Qualifying:
Stradale Motorsport persistently set the tempo through the 4 free observe periods however when the clock ran for qualifying it was Jeffrey Kruger who blitzed the time sheets in his Auto Investments Ligier JS53-Honda.
Kruger had not pushed the automotive all day till, with 5 minutes of the session remaining, he did one out lap and two flying laps earlier than the chequered flag fell, locking out pole on his first lap and reducing the goal by half a second on his second and remaining lap in a wide ranging show to set a time of 59.334 seconds across the 2.4km monitor.
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Charl Arangies was the one different driver to set a sub-one minute lap, 0.543 seconds behind the Ligier, locking out the entrance row of the grid.
Michael Stephen, entered to run solely the primary hour in his Ultimate Outlaws McLaren MP4-12C slotted into third forward of Mikaeel Pitamber/Gavin Cronje’s MP17/Rico Barlow Ligier JS53-Honda.
Paul Hill (Kalex Aston Martin Vantage GT3) additionally entered in the one-hour race adopted in fifth forward of the Hein/Henk Lategan/Verissimo Tavares BBR Porsche 992 GT3 Cup. Mo Mia/Lee Thompson (Toys-R-Us Porsche 991 GT3 Cup) had been simply 0.019 seconds behind, organising a tantalizing Stuttgart combat.
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Capetonians Byron Mitchell/Peter van der Spuy took eighth on the grid in their Dolphin Racing Juno-Nissan adopted by the defending SA Endurance Champion Kwanda Mokoena, teamed with Andrew Rackstraw in their MJR/Amandla Coal Audi R8 GT4.
Volkswagen Motorsport’s Daniel Rowe/Keagan Masters claimed the Class D initiative in their factory-entered Polo SupaCup forward of Jurie Swart/Karah Hill’s Kalex VW Polo SupaCup.
Andrew Horne/Gerald Buys (Xena Chemicals Nash-VW) confirmed their intent by taking the Class E pole from the main Backdraft of Benjamin/Crisjan/Ben Morgenrood.
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Class E and Index Champions Harm/Barend Pretorius (Team Pesty Backdraft) had been subsequent up from Mark Owens/Mags Govender and the remainder of the Backdraft entries.
During FP2 the Into Africa Lamborghini suffered a small pit lane hearth– shortly extinguished – however the injury took the remainder of the day to restore, and the crew missed out on qualifying, relegating the pair to start from the again of the grid.
Race highlights
The first hour of the race was frenetic because the lead modified thrice; Kruger was shortly swallowed up by Stephen in the McLaren nevertheless it was Stuart White who made the most important impression, taking 18 minutes to carve his method via from the again of the grid and into the lead.
Once the one-hour vehicles had pitted, the race was a straight combat between the 2 GT3 vehicles. During a fortuitous security automotive interval, Stradale known as Weston in for a splash and sprint gas cease so when his two hour stint was up, Arangies may leap in with sufficient gas to take the lead across the 95-lap mark when the Into Africa automotive pitted.
Luck and timing performs a component in endurance racing, and Letlaka discovered himself two laps down on the chief because of pitting underneath racing situations and popping out simply as the security automotive was deployed.
Once White was again in the automotive, he reduce his deficit to 1 lap and because the race entered its remaining hour, he fought onerous with Arangies, passing the Mercedes, solely for Arangies to re-take the place.
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White attacked once more and made the transfer stick on the second time of asking. When a remaining security automotive was deployed with 20 minutes remaining it appeared a problem for victory was on the playing cards.
When racing resumed with 11 minutes left on the clock, the hole was down to fifteen seconds and whereas White threw every part into the ultimate minutes, lapping two seconds a lap sooner than Arangies at occasions, the clock counted all the way down to zero and the chase was over.
Third place went to the BBR Porsche 992 GT3 Cup automotive of Lategan, Tavares and Lategan. Henk Lategan flew immediately from the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge to reach in time to take the ultimate stint. From desert to tarmac took a number of laps to regulate to, and in addition to a conflict with the Brandon Dean/Jarryd Wary Backdraft which triggered the Porsche to spin in flip two, Lategan Jr was all smiles on the end.
Lee Thompson and Mo Mia introduced their Toys-R-Us Porsche residence in fourth general after a terrific scrap with the BBR automotive in the primary hour.
Kwanda Mokoena and Andrew Rackstraw opened their 2023 account with fifth place. Mokoena was fortunate, for he ran out of gas on the final lap of his stint, with simply sufficient in the reserve pump to convey the automotive again to the pits.
Daniel Rowe and Keagan Masters took class D honours and sixth general after a bother free race in their factory-run Polo, though they needed to do an additional pitstop in comparison with their Bucket List rivals.
Christopher Pretorius/Gavin Rooke introduced their Polo residence in a lucky seventh, as a driveshaft broke on the final lap. Pretorius managed to limp residence to say second in class.
Index of efficiency and Class E Champions Barend and Harm Pretorius received their class and ended eighth general after nursing their automotive over the ultimate 90 minutes with clutch points.
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Byron Mitchell/Peter van de Spuy introduced their Juno residence in ninth general. The automotive suffered a sensor difficulty that triggered the automotive to default into limp mode when it detected a excessive water temperature however mysteriously righted itself once more every time it occurred. Van de Spuy had a spin and beached the automotive on a kerb which triggered a security automotive, shedding a number of laps in the method.
With a mixed age of 198 years, Tony and Brian Martin and Trevor Graham introduced their manufacturing unit Backdraft residence in 10th general and second in Class E forward of the 11th positioned endurance rookie Index successful trio.
The remaining categorised runner was the PPLE/Adapt Backdraft entry of Mark Harvey, Phillip Meyer and Dean Wolson who stopped on the again straight with 5 minutes to go, a failed alternator the reason for the lack of energy.
Retirements/Unclassified:
- The Morgenrood Backdraft misplaced 40 laps after a pin in the brake pedal field broke whereas main
- Brandon Dean/Jarryd Wray misplaced time with a number of pitstops after the collision with Lategan’s Porsche
- Karah Hill/Jurie Swart Kalex Polo: entrance wishbone broke, stranding the Polo in flip 7. The automotive was repaired and completed however was unclassified as they simply missed out on the 75% rule.
- Mike McLaughlin/Steve Clark: crashed
- Mark Owens/Mags Govender: Spun lap 105
- Team Qhubani: gearbox lap 105
- Fabienne Lanz/Jevreen Reddy: Driveshaft lap 99
- Mikaeel Pitamber/Gavin Cronje: alternator lap 91
- Andrew Horne/Gerald Buys: suspension lap 29
- Riaan Botma/Jeffrey Kruger: overheating lap 22
- Morne Jurgens/Dean Hogg: electrical lap 10
- Mario and Claudio Rossi/Regard van Zyl: hearth lap 2
The subsequent spherical of the SA Endurance National Championship takes place at Red Star Raceway on 28 and 29 April.
Published by MotorPress
For extra ongoing information in regards to the SA Endurance Championships, comply with our motorsport web page.
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