New and personal challenge awaits in Toyota GR Cup trek to PE

This weekend’s third round of the Toyota GR Cup presents a massive highlight in a season that has delivered unchanged results in all four races so far.

It has arrived

Heading to the coast and the Aldo Scribante circuit outside what was formerly known as Port Elizabeth, the event sees the long awaited arrival of the facelift GR Yaris fitted with the new eight-speed DAT, or Direct Automatic Transmission.

Replacing the tried-and-tested six-speed manual campaigned in all four seasons so far, the new close-ratio box offers a number of innovations over the three-pedal layout it replaces.

Besides the obvious lack of a clutch pedal, it sports predictive shifting software Toyota says adjusts to the driver’s behaviour by selecting gears faster than not only the manual, but also what a human can shift with the paddle shifters in manual mode compared to other conventional torque converter automatic transmissions.

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The second key statistic is more power. While the G16E-GTS three-cylinder 1.6-litre turbocharged engine has been retained, outputs have increased from 198kW/370Nm, to 210kW/400Nm.

Home race

Besides the new toys, which had initially been planned for the last round at Kyalami, the third round of the GR Cup, and by extension the National Extreme Festival, comes as personal.

Having grown up about 40 km or so from the circuit, the solitary round at Aldo Scribante will mark an almost 30-year split from witnessing this writer witnessing his first ever as a spectator to driving around in a racing environment.

As a four-year old back in 1995, supporting my heroes and watching from the sidelines never came with the expectancy of one day being part of providing the show as opposed to witnessing it.

While I have been privy to have physically driven around Scribante since then, neither was at true racing speed or against other cars trying to overtake. In fact, the last time was during a tyre testing event in 2019.

As such, any advantages over my rivals are unlikely, despite the track outline being a familiar one.

Demanding, tight and abrasive

Tight and compact, the circuit is technical and has a long standing reputation for being massively abrasive and, therefore, hard on tyres.

Factoring this in further is the relatively fast Hanger section after the twisty turns two and three esses.

Get it wrong, a fast understeer onto the gravel or even worse, flicking over the track into the tyre barriers on the opposite side is a given as an unfortunate Opel Astra driver did in 1998 during the Group N round.

Despite its tightness, the hairpin after Hanger is still the prime area for overtaking, but comes with the dilemma of favouring those brave enough to hold to the outside.

This is because of the left-hand sweep that follows directly after.

Another point of the track that places literal pressure on the outside wheels, the sweep appears even more inviting for overtaking, but has been known to bite with damaging consequences if not enough space is left.

The short back straight over the subway then leads into the final Dunlop corner – a critical corner in itself – as taking too much road when on the outside will lead to an off-road excursion.

Getting it right, though, comes with a two-tier outcome; sufficient drive to out run your drive and breaking the all important tow, preventing your rivals from overtaking into the turn one LuK Repco corner.

Easy sounding on paper, the simple reality is that Scribante is far from easy. While nowhere as fast as Killarney never mind Kyalami, it requires a different skill to get right.

The pressure is on

While championship leader Nabil Abdool (SuperSport) is likely to continue his battles with the various GR dealers in their GR Corollas, academy drivers in the GR86’s, and fellow scribes Kyle Kock (CAR Magazine) and Phuti Mpyane (TimesLive), the thrill and pressure of being on home soil has been building on me ever since the season started.

Having gotten close to displacing AutoTrader‘s Lawrence Minnie in the first Kyalami round, I had proven The Citizen‘s no 16 Yaris had what it takes when the driver morphs into, well, a racing driver.

Coming together in the second race with IOL/Independent‘s Willem van de Putte, and a generally poor outcome, needs no repeating, especially on a circuit I have wanted to do well and not finish in my now customary fifth place.

It, therefore, promises to be weekend into the unknown as we will be having our first go in the new cars during Thursday practice and therefore with no idea what to expect.

But, as the saying goes, it all adds to the fascinating unpredictability of this thing called motorsport.

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