Team Castrol Toyota came within four points of championship glory in the Toyota Dealers Gauteng Rally over the weekend. Going into the event Johnny Gemmell and co-driver Drew Sturrock knew they faced a tough task with a 21-point deficit to Enzo Kuun and 25 points available for a win.
The mathematics of the scoring of the Sasol South African Rally Championship dangled a carrot for the Toyota pair in their Auris S2000 rally car. The championship could be theirs with a win if Enzo Kuun faltered and failed to score at least three points in this final event.
With a seemingly comfortable position to defend, Kuun did in fact falter, in a terminal way, when he rolled his Polo S2000 out of the event in just the third stage at the Gerotek vehicle testing facility. This opened a door for Gemmell, but he still needed to win the event.
The event itself however played a wild card to mix up the order at the front of the field. Event organisers, the Pretoria Motor Club, opted for a unique format for this season finale with more than 50% of the event run on tar stages on the first day before crossing over to dirt for the second part of the event on Saturday.
This format would end up favouring the imported Ford Fiestas of Charl Wilken and Conrad Rautenbach. These two cars, with their European heritage, made use of a full tarmac suspension setup to up their pace on the hard surfaces of the first day and build up a significant time advantage on the first leg of the event.
“We knew it was all or nothing – we simply had to win the event to take the championship,” said Johnny Gemmell after the event. “Enzo rolling out of the event didn’t alter our situation – we still had to win to overtake him in the points total.
“Our situation was made a bit more challenging by the fact that the rally format allowed the Ford’s to use a full tarmac setup on day one and then do a complete suspension change for the gravel stages on the second leg. Our times on the gravel were a match for the Fords but they had built up too much of an advantage on the tar. In the end we settled for fourth place behind our team mates Leeroy Poulter and Robert Paisley.”
“We knew we faced a supreme challenge going into this event – Johnny simply had to win,” said Castrol Team Toyota team principal, Glyn Hall. “In the end that didn’t go our way and we were left an agonising five points short of the championship as runners up.
“The championship has been a really close fought one with the gap between the top places seldom more than a few seconds and often down to fractions of a second. In fact the time differential between Johnny Gemmell and Enzo Kuun over the full season was just 0.4 seconds per kilometre with the advantage alternating between these two by event.
“Aside from Johnny’s chase for the win, a highlight of this event for Castrol Team Toyota and our partners Imperial and The Innovation Group, was the performance of Leeroy Poulter. His third place overall, just six seconds off second place, in only his second outing in the top class in South African rallying was a very satisfying result for us and bodes well for the strength of the team going forwards.
“A consolation for the team and Toyota was the resounding win in the Manufacturers’ Championship – Toyota’s 20th manufacturers’ title.”
– Credit: Toyota of South Africa.