Despite the championship having been decided, the battle for second and third and fourth and fifth places have yet to be settled.
After six rounds and 11 races instead of 12 due to the now infamous washout at the East London Grand Prix circuit, the fourth season of the Toyota GR Cup reaches its finale this weekend at the Zwartkops Raceway outside Pretoria.
One of only two circuits to host a pair of rounds, the other being Killarney, the series regroups on the Highveld for the first time at the same track since round four in June.
The situation
While the last round at Killarney saw SuperSport’s Nabil Abdool finally wrap the championship up, the final round, which forms part of the National Extreme Festival, is still anything but settled lower down.
Unable to be beaten with his tally of 73 points, Abdool holds a 21 point lead over Car Magazine’s Kyle Kock, whose pair of victories on home soil in Cape Town, broke the SuperSport man’s perfect run of wins.
Four points back from Kok is TimesLive’s Phuti Mpyane, meaning the battle for the runner-up spot is still up for grabs.
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The main focus of the weekend will be the battle for fourth. With 29 points, AutoTrader’s Lawrence Minnie lies 19 points behind Mpyane, therefore making a podium finish impossible.
Similar to the points difference between Kyle and Phuti, I find myself four points behind Lawrence after a fifth and fourth place finish in Cape Town.
Conversely, with a gap of 12 points back to IOL/Independent’s Willem de Putte, a fifth place finish for The Citizen is an almost certainty.
However, having come on strong ever since the wet weather round at East London, a fourth place is the target for the weekend.
Getting it right
At the same time, returning to Zwartkops comes with unfinished business. As with Kyalami, the home of the Toyota GR Academy has proven to be my boogie of late.
While similarly technical and tight to Killarney and Aldo Scribante, it is a tricky layout to master, especially around the back-end from the turn two hairpin up the hill to the double left-hand corner pass GR HQ.
The scene of my one and only podium in the second race of the first visit following the tangle between Lawrence and Kyle, the main challenge will be getting it right in qualifying.
An area I have struggled with from race one, the Zwartkops layout lends itself an almost Monaco-esque pression i.e. not the easiest track to overtake.
It is also a circuit that requires a lot of bravery when overtaking as one slip could result either in a loose on-track, or flying into the barriers at high speed.
Having had a disastrous first race in June that saw me finish behind Willem after what had been a sloppy race, my newfound confidence will, hopefully, come with the result of fourth place in my first year of racing competitively.
A weekend of significant importance, it will, nonetheless, also be a sad one. Goodbyes are never pleasant, and after seven rounds at all of the major circuits in the country, it will be especially poignant.
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