Five rally leaders, 17 stages and 200km of South Africa’s most technically demanding rally roads: the 20th edition of the SASOL Rally provied the fireworks that the South African rally Championship has needed in previous years to bolster its ever-growing supporter base. In an unpredictable high-speed game of Chess, this rally will long be remembered for its action and excitement.
Leeroy Poulter/Elvene Coetzee (Castrol Toyota Auris S2000) came from behind to claim victory in the Mpumalanga Lowveld-based event, this their first overall rally win and Toyota’s 100th in the South African Rally Championship. Elvene joins four other ladies as the select group of female National Rally winners.
After a disappointing start to their 2011 South African Rally Championship season, the factory Castrol Toyota Auris squad flipped the rally establishment on its head to record yet another special 1-2 victory with Johnny Gemmell/Drew Sturrock a handful of seconds behind them. Many teams had written the Toyoa squad off after a lacklustre performance on the Total Tout Natal Rally, Round One on the 2011 calendar. However, recent extensive testing and development in the lead-up to the rally proved invaluable to the engineers and drivers.
As expected, the threat from the ever-potent BP Volkswagen Polo Vivo S2000 crews reminded rally fans and competitors alke why they’ve dominated the Drivers’ Championship over the past six seasons. With four privateer M-Sport-built Ford Fiesta S2000s doing duty here, and putting on an impressive show in KwaZulu-Natal last month, the factory teams from Toyota and Volkswagen will need to be wary of their British-built rivals this season.
Fighting for overall honours this past weekend were five crews: the two Castrol Toyota Auris S2000s, the BP Volkswagen Polo Vivo of Jan Habig/Robert Paisely, the Team SASOL Ford Fiesta S2000 of Mark Cronje and the G-Fuel Ford Fiesta S2000 of Conrad Rautenbach/Nicolas Klinger.
The opening stages were a Ford Fiesta showcase, with Mark Cronje picking up his incredible pace where he left off in KwaZulu-Natal. An unfortunate bad luck incident saw him drop off the lead and out of the top ten after SS2. Jan Habig took up the task of leading the pack after an intense battle on Day One’s opening eight stages saw him, Gemmell and Poulter never more than 13sec apart.
There always seems to be one stage on each leg of the South African rallies that proves to be telling for the leaderboard. Day One’s drama-filled stage came as early as SS2, a high-speed gravel and forest test in the Sabie region. After witnessing the rally field pass through SS1, and with all crews not holding back or sand-bagging their pace, the Class S2000 runners passed through SS2 relatively unscathed by the route’streacherously rough surface. The Class S1600 runners, also in a fierce four-way battle for Class honours, saw Tjaart Conradie/Kes Naidoo (Silverton Engineering Toyota Aris S1600 crash and block the route for following crews. The pairing emerged uninjured, while the stage was cancelled and all of the remaining competitors received equal time. This stage was also Habig’s first stage win on the weekend, and saw the hot pace of the Volkswagens become apparent to all.
At the end of Day One’s speed tests, Habig was still in charge at the top of the leaderboard with Poulter only 6.3sec adrift. Gemmell finished the day in third, 13.2sec behind their teammates and with Hergen Fekken/Pierre Arries (BP Volkswagen Polo Vivo S2000) in fourth and Conrad Rautenbach/Nicolas Klinger (G-Fuel Ford Fiesta S2000) in fifth and only 30.3sec off the leader’s pace.
Lying 23rd out of the events’ 47 original starters were Christoff and Celeste Snyders (Volkswagen Polo S1600) to lead the 2WD brigade. Henk Lategan/Pierre Jordaan (Q8 Oils Volkswagen Polo Vivo S1400) drove neatly to bring up the rear of the National field. The list of retirees at this point was already long, living up to the rally’s reputation of being taxing on cars and crews.
Day Two started off with the spectacular Super Special Stage run in the heart of Nelspruit, with two cars not only racing against the clock but also against each other. After the second gravel stage of the day (SS11), Poulter leapfrogged his teammate, claimed the lead, pulled a slight advantage over his experienced rival and then had his lead crushed by Habig to see the wily driver create a 07.1sec gap over the chasing field. Something and someone had to give in this blow-for-blow fight, and it was the Volkswagen Polo Vivo S2000 of Habig that crashed out of the event in spectacular fashion in SS12. Habig and Paisely were fortunate to walk away from the expensive wreck that was once their Polo Vivo S2000, but co-driver Paisley was hospitalised with a suspected fractured collarbone.
Further down the field, SS11 proved to be the day’s most drama-filled test: Enzo Kuun and Hergen Fekken both suffered in this stage, and dropped further off the leaders despite their best efforts as the conditions proved too rough for their war machines. It was also the scene of Conrad Rautenbach reminding us all of his pace, setting the fastest stage time while those around him seemed to stumble.
Poulter was gifted the lead with the exit of Habig in SS12, but still had to contend with his teammate Gemmell through the remaining five stages. In a fight that was only concluded after both Toyota crews had switched their cars ignitions off, it was Poulter who bravely maintained his lead to record his first ever National Rally win in only his tenth ever rally and fourth event in an S2000 machine.
Rautenbach, winner of Round One, finished on the final podium positiom and also won the FIA African Rally Championship (ARC) leg that fell as part of the 2011 SASOL Rally. His winning margin over his ARC rivals was a dominant 11min 30sec!
J-P. Damseaux/Carolyn Swan (Team Total Evolution Toyota RunX S2000) came home fourth after yet another impressive drive. Teammates Mohammed Moosa/Grant Martin finished eighth, but they showed the potential to also claim a top six position in the next rounds of the series.
Mark Cronje/Robin Houghton (Team SASOL Ford Fiesta S2000) fought back on Day Two to finish the event in a commendable fifth place overall. Their teammates, Jon Williams/Cobus Very, who suffered a run of bad luck on Day One too, finished 11th overall but also set promising stage times in their fight back up the leaderboard. Rewarding their sponsors for a fantastic event, Cronje won SS15 and Williams posted the fastest stages times through SS16 and SS17. Their pace is threatening to other teams, and on paper this team seems likely to record wins this season!
Charl Wilken/Greg Godrich (Basil Read/Bizhub Ford Fiesta S2000) ended sixth overall after a quiet rally, ahead of Hergen Fekken/Pierre Arries (BP Volkswagen Polo Vivo S2000). Nicholas Ryan/Geoff Tyrer (Grandmark International Volkswagen Polo S2000) brought their machine home in ninth position overall with Hein Lategan/Johan van dder Merwe (Pirtek Peugeot 207) rounding out the top ten in their distinctive and fast French flyer.
The Snyders (Volkswagen Polo S1600) won the Super 1600 Class, battling withPort Elizabeth’s Morne Janse van Rensburg/Rikus Fourie (GC Diesel Volkswagen Polo Vivo S600) and Craig Trott/Robbie Coetzee (Team Total Toyota RunX S1600). On the final gravel stage, in the heat of battle while chasing hard after the Snyders, Janse van Rensburg crashed out of the event to hand a comfortable win to the brother-and-sister Snyders pairing. They now also lead the South African Junior Rally Championship. Note that Henk Lategan/Pierre Jordaan (Q8 Oils Volkswagen Polo Vivo S1400) was the only finisher in the Super 1400 Class and proved the old adage that to finish first, one has to first finish.
OVERALL CLASSIFICATION
01) L. Poulter/E. Coetzee
Toyota Auris S2000 – 02hr 17m 27.4s
02) J. Gemmell/D. Sturrock
Toyota Auris S2000 + 07.6s
03) C. Rautenbach/N. Klinger
Ford Fiesta S2000 + 02m 42.9s
04) J-P. Damseaux/C. Swan
Toyota RunX S2000 + 04m 01.8s
05) M. Cronje/R. Houghton
Ford Fiesta S2000 + 04m 27.0s
06) C. Wilken/G. Godrich
Ford Fiesta S2000 + 05m 20.8s
07) H. Fekken/P. Arries
Volkwagen Polo Vivo S2000 + 05m 37.5s
08) M. Moosa/G. Martin
Toyota RunX S2000 + 06m 44.0s
09) N. Ryan/G. Tyrer
Volkswagen Polo S2000 + 07m 20.6s
10) H. Lategan/J. Van der Merwe
Peugeot 207 S2000 + 10m 32.7s
