Thrills aplenty at the Kyalami 9 Hour

The final round of the 2021 Intercontinental GT Challenge was held at the Kyalami Grand Prix circuit over the weekend. The running of the iconic Kyalami 9 Hour race was postponed from its initial December calendar spot after the outbreak of the Omicron Covid-19 variant in SA.    

The delayed running saw many of the international teams opt out of the race, with only a few championship contenders making the effort to travel to Africa. 

A total of 13 cars entered the race. Eleven were participating in the 9 Hour. The remaining two, which were SA teams, competed in a concurrent one-hour race separate to the main event. 

An intense bout of thunderstorms on Friday saw both qualifying and Super Pole sessions canceled due to too much standing water on the FIA-graded, 4.522km long circuit north of Johannesburg. Grid positions for the race would be determined by the pre-qualification time sheets, and this put the No 89 Mercedes-AMG Team AKKA ASP on pole position for Saturday, followed by the No 71 Ferrari 488 of AF Corse.

Due to Covid-19 regulations, spectator attendance was limited to the event and required every spectator to produce a full vaccination certificate before being allowed entry.

The spirit of the Kyalami 9 Hour of the past was well represented with people setting up gazebos and enjoying braais trackside on the embankments next to legendary corners such as Sunset, Clubhouse and the Esses.

With a 1pm start time, the race would run well into the night to finish at 10pm.

Raffaele Marciello set the pace early on in the AKKA ASP Mercedes-AMG. The pair of AF Corse Ferraris opted to change their pit strategy and did not take tyres or fuel when expected. This put them into a one-two position after the first stints.   

A drive-through penalty for the No 51 car saw it lose the advantage it had over the Mercedes, while the 71 car suffered gearbox issues on lap 119, which led to the only retirement of the race. The weather played along and offered dry conditions throughout, despite a few drops of rain early on.

A single safety car period lasting no more than a few laps saw the field bunch up briefly, after which the AKKA ASP Mercedes-AMG driven by Raffaele Marciello, Jules Gounon and Timur Boguslavskiy took complete control of the race and would go on to win by 15 seconds after 307 laps of racing, over the No 51 AF Corse Ferrari driven by Côme Ledogar, Miguel Molina and Alessandro Pier Guidi.   

The Audi Sport Team WRT cars suffered a bit with the high altitude and its naturally aspirated engine — never having the pace to match either the Ferrari or the Mercedes. SA superstar Kelvin van der Linde, along with team mates Patric Niederhauser and Markus Winkelhock, managed to finish third.

The results meant Audi Sport secured the Manufacturer’s Championship well clear of Mercedes-AMG and Ferrari, with the pairing of Ledogar and Guidi taking the honours for Driver’s Championship, each with 55 points ahead of Markus Winkelhock with 50 points.

The SA teams competed in their own National GT3 class during the race. They feature slightly different specifications to the international GT3 cars. The Stradale Motorsport team with Charl Arangies, Arnold Neveling and Michael van Rooyen at the helm of a Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo managed to finish 29 laps behind the winning Mercedes-AMG and secure their class win.   

Second place for the National GT3 class, and 16 laps off the Stradale Motorsport car, is the first ever all-black entry into a Kyalami 9 Hour race. The Stradale Into Africa team’s driver line-up of Xolile Letlaka, Tschops Sipuka and Philip Kekana piloted their Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo to the finish line, writing their names in the history books as the first all-black team to finish the Kyalami 9 Hour.

The Intercontinental GT Challenge will return to Kyalami later in the year with the 2022 Kyalami 9 Hour, and a calendar shake-up places it second in the calendar for 2023, which would guarantee much better attendance by teams.    

Despite the disappointing turn-out for the rescheduled 2021 race, the level of driving enthralled the spectators who attended the event. The revival of the iconic Kyalami 9 Hour hasn’t been without issues, but having world-class racing back in SA for the foreseeable future is bound to have a positive effect on local motorsport.