The SASOL South African Rally Championship resumed after a six-week break in the same thrilling fashion experienced at the end of June.
This weekend’s VW Rally in Port Elizabeth, the fifth round of the eight event championship, saw Castrol Team Toyota’s Johnny Gemmell take the fight to Volkswagen on their home turf to win the event by just 1.5 seconds from Enzo Kuun.
Gemmell and navigator Drew Sturrock took just three special stages on Friday’s leg of the event to assert their authority on the rally. The first stage was won by Conrad Rautenbach by a 12 second margin over Gemmell, who recorded the second quickest time. A win for Gemmell on the second stage saw the gap close to just 1.2 seconds with that deficit converted to a lead of 13 seconds over Jan Habig by the end of the third stage.
By the end of the first day Enzo Kuun had taken over from Jan Habig as Gemmell’s main challenger and was 5.3 seconds off the lead. Through the next five stages on Saturday Kuun kept up the pressure but was unable to move ahead of Gemmell.
Going into the final stage of the event, a 1.7 kilometre spectator special at Kings Beach in Port Elizabeth, the gap was the same as it was at the beginning of the day but a do-or-die on the part of the VW driver saw him close the gap to just 1.5 seconds in the final stage. A close finish, but not as close as the 0.7 second margin held by Gemmell at the end of the Rally of South Africa six weeks ago.
“The VW Rally is one of the more treacherous rallies in the series,” said Gemmell afterward. “It’s a really quick event on typical forest roads with varying surfaces that can catch you out so easily. We knew that we had to very quickly find a pace that would get us in a position to challenge for the lead without taking undue risks.
“Once Conrad dropped off the pace we were able to settle into a really good rhythm at the front of the field. When Enzo Kuun took over the challenge from Habig we knew we had a battle on our hands but we were able to manage the gap and bring the car home in one piece. Our Auris S2000 ran flawlessly throughout the event to give us a really clean run. No punctures and not a single equipment problem gave us the confidence to chase for the win.”
At the overnight stop there were three Toyota Auris S2000s in the top five positions with the Pirtek Auris of Hein Lategan in third place Castrol works car of Mark Cronje in fifth in close support of Gemmell.
Lategan went off the road in the second of Saturday’s stages and had his rally ended by a combination of suspension damage to the Auris and an injury to his hand caused by the transfer of the impact force through the steering wheel. Mark Cronje lost three minutes in the same stage through a puncture 8 kilometres from the end of the stage.
At the end of the final stage it was very much advantage Toyota in this event and Gemmell in the championship. For Toyota this was the 14th overall win in the VW Rally in its 27 year history with Serge Damseaux accounting for 12 of those wins, Mark Cronje one (2008) and now a maiden win in the Eastern Cape for Gemmell.
In the championship the advantage swings to Gemmell as the only driver to win two events so far this season. With 86 points scored he now shares the lead in the championship with Enzo Kuun with three events still to run.
“This came close to being a dream event for Toyota,” says Castrol Team Toyota team principal, Glyn Hall. “The win was good but we showed that there is the underlying strength within the team and amongst our privateers to possibly fill the podium. Mechanically the performance of the two works Auris S2000s was flawless with the privateer cars also having pretty clean runs aside from damage from going off the road.
Visser du Plessis scored a fine fifth place in his Pirtek Auris and Mark Cronje recovered to finish eighth overall and score valuable points. Once again we had a nail biting close finish – good for spectator interest but tense for the team – with Johnny able to hold off the challenge and take the win. All in all it was a good day for rallying and a good day for the team and our partners Castrol, the Innovation Group, and Imperial.”
Class A6 was a Toyota benefit with Leeroy Poulter winning the class in his RunX ahead of Tjaart Conradie in an Auris and Craig Trott in a RunX. Class A5 was won by Ashley Haigh-Smith in his Yaris with Chad Lambert, also in a Yaris, second in the class. Class N3 produced a maiden win for the father and daughter team of Stefanie and Willem Hugo in a RunX.
– Credit: Toyota of South Africa