Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium - Capetonian David Perel left the locals shell-shocked when he arrived out of nowhere to dominate the weekend's Lamborghini Gallardo Super Trofeo races, with two dramatic wins and the fastest lap in each race.
Perel, who had never seen - let alone driven - the classic circuit before, only got the call to fly to Belgium on Tuesday when a seat became vacant for the races at Spa, which serve as a curtain-raiser for the Spa 24-Hour endurance race. He immediately went straight to Spa to walk the circuit in preparation for practice on Thursday, qualifying and Race 1 on Friday, and Race 2 on Saturday, just ahead of the main event.
He would be driving the same Bonaldi Gallardo he regularly races in the Italian GT Cup series - where he and co-driver Mirko Zanardini are currently second in the championship standings - but without the restrictors the car has to run in Italy, and with a different co-driver. In fact, he didn't know who his partner would be until he got there!
DRAMATIC WIN
But when he finally got out on the iconic circuit, Perel was immediately on the pace, missing pole position for Race 1 by just one tenth of a second.
Perel drove the first stint in Race 1, grabbed the lead in the first corner and built up a 10 second cushion before the safety car came out. He took the opportunity to duck into the pits and hand the car over to co-driver Ricardo Vera.
The pit stop dropped them to second, but Vera pulled off a kamikaze last-lap overtaking move to take a dramatic win.
Race 2 was run in pouring rain, so bad that Perel complained he couldn't see at thing.
"Ricardo drive first and lost some places," he said, "so after the change I pushed like crazy from last place.
"I managed to catch the leader with a lap to go and then a back marker handed me a great opportunity to make it two wins out of two!"