Just two weeks after competing at Aldo Scribante Raceway in Port Elizabeth, the Sasol GTC Africa championship heads to the Western Cape and round three for 2016, on September 24. With six rounds scheduled between the five months of August to December, the race programme is extremely tight.
Brian Joss – With two rounds completed, the Volkswagen Jetta GTC entries of Mathew Hodges and Graeme Nathan are back-to-back in third and fourth place overall, with the pair staying amongst the leaders while working on adapting from front-wheel to rear-wheel drive.
“The first two rounds of the championship could not have been more different,” says Mike Rowe, head of Volkswagen Motorsport. “This has served to leap the development of the Volkswagen Jetta GTC forward and round three should be even more competitive.
In the GTC Production category, Daniel Rowe has extended his lead on his rivals by making the most of the Volkswagen GTI GTC’s handling in the wet at the PE round. Two races wins out of three podium positions has clearly made him the man to beat and another successful race day in Cape Town is going to give him a distinct advantage from mid-season and he will be very difficult to beat in the later rounds.
Mandla Mdakane is showing great improvement in his Volkswagen Golf GTI GTC Production entry. The qualifying session at Scribante saw Mdakane second only two Rowe and he left PE with two podium finishes on the day, a second and a third.
The challenge that is Killarney will be more about balancing the potential conditions during Spring which could affect the weather while also keeping the competition at bay – allowing them no opportunity to close the gaps.
“The Sasol GTC Africa championship is in the early stages and we are expecting competition to become intense as the teams work on their setup and adapt their particular driving style to suit,” says Rowe. “I am satisfied with what we have achieved so far and our drivers are showing potential which can be built on to become more successful with every event. The first season is a short, crowded one which is actually a good thing for driving competition between the teams.”
“Between the first two rounds there has already been a big jump in competition between the teams and I’m expecting round three is going to be even closer and more action-packed.”