By: Motoring Staff
Pretoria - Engen Xtreme Audi driver Michael Stephen enjoyed a perfect outing at the inaugural Sasol GTC race held at Zwartkops on Tuesday, scoring pole position in the morning’s qualifying session and then following up with two heat wins.
Stephen, who has multiple South African titles to his name, and who won the now defunct Production Cars championship three times in an older spec Audi S4, suffered none of the teething problems other drivers on the grid battled and made a dream debut for the brand-new tubular chassis A3 sedan. His pole came by a narrow margin however, as his best qualifying lap of 1 minute 6.3 seconds was only two tenths quicker than the Jetta GTC of Matthew Hodges. Third, and only 0.16 second behind was the Sasol BMW 2-Series of Gennaro Bonafede.
Round 1 of the Sasol GTC Championship #sasolgtc @michaelstephen@graemenathan @gennarobonafede
A video posted by GTC Africa (@gtcafrica) on Aug 9, 2016 at 10:50pm PDT
In race one Michael Stephen led from flag to flag, beating Hodges to the line by just over a second. Third was Bonafede, with Hodges’ Volkswagen team-mate Graeme Nathan fourth, Hennie Groenewald in the second Sasol BMW fifth, and Simon Moss in another Engen Audi sixth.
Race two again went Stephen’s way, but this time Hodges’ Jetta developed a gearbox issue and put him back in fourth a lap down. Nathan stepped up to take second this time around with Bonafede third again. Moss’s Audi, which was only finished being built on Monday and was repaired after a crash in qualifying, retired along with Groenewald’s Beemer.
A photo posted by GTC Africa (@gtcafrica) on Aug 9, 2016 at 6:45am PDT
More cars on the way
This opening round featured only six cars, but two more privately entered BMWs are expected from Johan Fourie and Michael van Rooyen by the end of the year. The GTC series was developed as a cheaper alternative to the hugely expensive Production Cars formula, with all cars based on the same tube frame and using the same suspension systems and sequential transaxle gearboxes. Engines are 2-litre turbos supplied by respective manufacturers but with modified turbochargers and outputs of around 375kW. Obviously body panels are also brand-specific.
For now there is a second tier GTC Production category which races alongside the proper GTC cars to make up numbers on the grid. These cars are also 2-litre turbos but are more closely based on actual road cars. Most of the GTC production field comprises ex-Production Car Class T entrants. Shaun Duminy scored the first GTC Production heat win in his SMD Ford Focus ST ahead of the Golf GTIs of Daniel Rowe and Mandla Mdkane. In the second race Rowe managed to pull one over on Duminy, with the GTI of Charl Smallberger third.
The next round is scheduled for September 10 at Aldo Scribante in Port Elizabeth.
A photo posted by GTC Africa (@gtcafrica) on Aug 9, 2016 at 2:09am PDT