Johnny Gemmell lines up for the 2010 Osram Rally chasing a hat trick of wins in his Castrol Team Toyota Auris S2000 after clinching both the last two events after closely fought but controlled battles. In the Rally of South Africa he beat Jan Habig by just seven tenths of a second and in the VW rally he managed a winning margin of double that over Enzo Kuun.
While a glance at the points table shows Gemmell and Kuun tied on 88 points each, the momentum swung towards Gemmel after he took the high ground in the Volkswagen Rally as the first contender to win two events in the current season. His two wins are backed up by a second and a fourth place.
While Gemmell and Kuun fight it out for the championship, their respective team mates Mark Cronje and Jan Habig are locked in a battle for third place with just nine points separating them but with 75 points still available in the final three events both remain in the running to make a late charge for the championship. Rally enthusiasts are certainly set for an exciting climax to the season.
The Osram Rally occupies a unique spot in the Sasol South African Rally Championship as the only event run for the greater part on public roads closed off for the duration of the stages. It is a fast and compact one-day event that delivers the highest average special stage speeds of any of the eight championship rounds. An added challenge is that it takes place at high altitude with the start in Barkly East at around 1800 metres and the event moving up above 2000 metres at times from there.
“The unique nature of the Osram Rally makes it one of the more strategically challenging events in our championship,” says Glyn Hall, Castrol Team Toyota team principal. “The speed of the stages require that the engines run at peak revs for the longest time on any event while the altitude robs the cars of power. A major part of the pre-event strategy for this event is to achieve the best balance possible with the choice of gear ratios. Do you go long or short with your ratios to favour the long high-speed sections or the equally important changes in elevation? This is always a burning question in the mountains.
“The Auris has always gone well in this event. Mark Cronje led the event for most of the way in 2008 and Johnny Gemmell won it last year. The possibility of a hat trick of wins for Johnny and the added incentive of the fact that this event could deliver Toyota’s 100th South African championship rally win has both of our drivers really well focused and supported by our partners Castrol, The Innovation Group, and Imperial.
“As far as the Auris goes we continue to follow a policy of continual improvement with small but incremental changes improving its performance each time out. We have a revision to the engine for this event that could just help a bit in the thin air.
“We have a bit of momentum going into this event. Our aim is to maintain that and build on the points tallies of both of our crews to achieve the end goal of the drivers’ and navigators’ championships.”
– Credit: Toyota of South Africa.