Midas motorsport |
by Motoring Correspondent
No damp squibs at
season opener
➲ Michael Stephen controlled a
very wet 17-lap feature race
A steady drizzle, which left the Zwartkops track drenched and windscreens foggy, set the scene for an
incident-filled 17-lap Bridgestone Super Production Cars feature race on March 1.
C
harl Smalberger in the Sabertek
Golf5 GTI didn’t make it past
the first corner, getting tagged
and losing control, then hitting the tyre
barrier on the inside of the corner - which
flipped the car into a double-roll and
brought out the red flag.
The event was restarted after a long delay,
with pole sitter Gavin Cronje in the ADF
BMW 335i pitting immediately with an
overheating engine, effectively handing the
front row to the Engen sponsored Audis.
Simon Moss led briefly, but his vastly more
experienced team mate Michael Stephen
soon took over, and quickly opened a gap
to the chasing pack. Moss wasn’t able
to delay impressive youngster Gennaro
Bonafede for long and the Sasolracing Audi
steamed past, followed soon after by the
similar car of Hennie Groenewald.
And that was how it stayed for the
duration, Stephen controlling the game
from the front, keeping it neat and tidy to
come home a second ahead of Bonafede
– driving with a maturity which belied
his years - with Groenewald and Moss
chipping in to make it an Audi one-twothree-four. It was a disastrous day for the
BMWs and apart from Cronje’s troubles,
Johan Fourie was forced to pit with a foggy
windscreen, eventually soldiering to the
finish two laps down, while Cronje was only
credited with nine laps and was declared a
non-finisher.
The 2014 South African Single Seater
(SASS) season got off to a solid, if
somewhat predictable, start with defending
Formula Volkswagen (FVW) champion,
Robert Wolk, opening his 2014 campaign
with back-to-back race wins held under
very different
conditions.
Second and third
places - in both
heats – were
taken by Nicholas
van Weely and
Jason Campos
respectively.
While race one
was held in
dry, overcast
conditions that
➲ Robert Wolk continued where he left off with two wins in the
SA Single Seaters Championship
| Wheels in Action
96
april 2014
allowed Wolk to open up and maintain
an early lead, race two was held in wet
and slippery conditions and was a much
tighter affair. Wolk had earlier claimed pole
position with a qualifying time 0.282 of a
second faster than rival van Weely.
But it was Wolk that led the field from flag
to flag in both races, with the second race
requiring a determined driving display
in tricky conditions. With deteriorating
weather overhead, the FVW field, with the
exception of debutant Campos, boldly
opted for slick tyres, with the high-speed
single-seaters proving a handful to control
as a result. As the F1600 2013 champion,
Campos’ more conservative approach saw
him hold onto third place, a mere 0.02 of a
second ahead of Sebastian Lanzetti.
Like that other famous racing series, the
SA single-seater field will have to keep
a careful eye on tyre wear this year. This
season, each racer receives just four sets
of tyres for the year, with the race tyres
from Zwartkops needing to be used at
round two in Cape Town at the end of
March.
Tyre management is going to
be a telling factor as drivers try
to maintain good grip levels in
both events.