Castrol Team Toyota’s Johnny Gemmell and Drew Sturrock (Toyota Auris) will be looking to score their first win in the 2011 South African Rally Championship this weekend after finishing second and third in the last two events.
Meanwhile team-mates Leeroy Poulter and Elvene Coetzee will be aiming for their second victory of the year following their debut win in the Sasol Rally in April. This victory, in Poulter and Coetzee’s first season in the premier S2000 class, marked a century of national championship rally wins for Toyota since 1968. Gemmell and Sturrock were second.
The Toyota Dealer Gauteng Rally will start from Carnival Toyota near Carnival City at noon on Friday, June 10 and will finish at the RallyStar Motorsport Academy near Bapsfontein on Saturday afternoon. The newly upgraded dealership, which is one of Toyota’s flagship retailers, will host rally headquarters on Friday and will be the venue for documentation and scrutineering
In what is turning out to be one of the most tightly-contested championships for many years – nine different drivers (including both Gemmell and Poulter) have won special stages to date with eight stage winners on the Sasol Rally alone – Gemmell and Sturrock are well placed in the drivers’ and co-drivers’ championships as the competition reaches its halfway point.
Gemmell is currently second in the drivers’ title chase with 51 points, 18 behind Zimbabwean Conrad Rautenbach after finishing 10th, second and third in the three rounds held so far. Scotsman Sturrock leads the co-drivers’ standings with 54 points because Rautenbach’s French co-driver, Nicolas Klinger, is not competing with a South African licence and doesn’t qualify to score.
A wrong slot on the penultimate stage of the HMC Hencom Autobody Rally in Mpumalanga three weeks ago while lying second put paid to any chances Gemmell had of scoring Toyota’s 101st victory.
Poulter continues to impress in only his second season of rallying. He was third at the end of the first day of the Mpumalanga event and was looking good for a podium finish until stranded with a flat battery on the second day.
He recorded the fastest time on Saturday’s stage six until it was cancelled and was on course for a win on the following stage and the lead of the event when he was forced to overshoot a hairpin turn after losing first gear.
“We were unfortunate last time out as both Johnny and Leeroy were in contention to win the event,” says team principal Glyn Hall. “A second successive Toyota 1-2 was on the cards.” As a former national rally champion, Hall is well qualified to judge his charges’ performances and is confident that more wins will come.
“For the Toyota Dealer Gauteng Rally this weekend we’ve made some small changes to the car and adjusted the set-up. We’ll be testing before Friday to ensure that we optimise the changes we’ve made. This is only our fourth event with the updated Auris rally car and we’re still in the process of unlocking its true potential.”