From zero to almost podium hero in Toyota GR Cup stunner

Four-time British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) champion Win Percy probably summarised it the best when talking about the series in a documentary with broadcaster ITV back in 2014.

“The sad trutruth is, a lot of people go (motor racing events) to watch accidents, it is terrible but it is true. To a lot of people, if it is a boring race because someone has driven very well, but there has been no incidents, they don’t enjoy it the same if there is a crash”.

While round four of the Toyota GR Cup this past weekend at the Zwartkops Raceway outside Pretoria cannot be seen as on par with some of the panel bashing that has characterised the BTCC, it still amounted to the most heated weekend of the season so far.

Biggest grid so far

Similar to the Super Touring era of the BTCC, the halfway mark of this year’s championship also saw the biggest field of GRs take to the grid.

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Supposedly put out of service after round two at Kyalami, four of the manual GR Yaris’ were brought back, three campaigned by dealers and one by the GR Academy.

It, therefore, meant that 25 GR Yaris’, GR Corollas and GR86s were present for round four of the GR Cup and of the National Extreme Festival, the most of any discipline and set to grow further if mutterings around the pitlane were to be true.

What it meant was a massive grid and, like the BTCC in its heyday, prone to a few unavoidable scratches which, until now, had been in the minority.

A track that warrants respects

After a reasonably good debut for the new eight-speed Direct Automatic Transmission (DAT) GR Yaris at the last round at Aldo Scribante, my hopes for Zwartkops were pretty low in the weeks leading up to the event.

Besides the learning process of still getting to know the car, any supposed advantages were zero as our shakedown introduction to the GR Cup in March had been with the manual GR Yaris.

Adding to the ease provided by the DAT, it would come down to skill to master a circuit which, although compact and short at 2.4 km, deserves respect to get right.

Besides the fast turn one and tight turn two hairpins, the backstraight into turn four seldom misses an opportunity to catch those out who get it wrong.

Get it right, the run up the hill to turns five and six passes Toyota GR HQ where all of the executives were seated – the biggest hint not to go off or bash panels.

From there, the run down the hill pass turns seven and then turn eight hairpin comes with its own challenge – the latter prone to see drivers spin out for entering too fast, or fly onto the gravel on the outside of what becomes the main straight.

Practise

Setting off for practice, the same lack of feel with the Yaris experienced at Scribante at all but disappeared even in the colder temperatures of running early.

Gaining confidence, I managed to set a time of 1.14.6 after the first session. However, I knew I could still go faster.

That, of course, means becoming braver and taking some risk, which, halfway through the second session, saw the magnetising effect of turn four grip the front of the Yaris while letting the rear slide.

Thinking the rear would eventually, literally, come around, I kept calm even as the inside barrier got ever closer.

Eventually, only a half spin was executed, but needless to say, my confidence had been shattered, not helped by the car going into limp mode as I tried to start a new lap. 

It wasn’t all lost, though, and apart from there being no damage, I still improved on my best time.

A largely clean third session yielded the same result, but with a two-tenths gain over my best run.

Qualifying

Come qualifying, and after having endured anything but a good night’s rest, the nerves were at an all-time high.

Unlike Scribante, there was no need to worry about Zwartkops chowing our Dunlop Direzza rubber to bits. The biggest issue, though, was going to be traffic.

As a way of overcoming this, the field was split into two, thereby avoiding any possible heated moments and accusations of impeding one another.

Going out as part of the second group, I decided to throw caution out the window and try to be as fast and smooth as possible without spinning or turning The Citizen’s GR Yaris into a GR Yaris Cross.

Using the intercooler sprayer that activates at full throttle, my lap time tumbled and eventually came within my set goal of under 1.14.

My enthusiasm soon disappeared, though, as I realised that my time of 1.13.9 was nearly three-tenths slower than my arch rival, IOL/Independent’s Willem van de Putte.

Speechless and anything but pleased, the goal for race one was a familiar one – get ahead as quickly as possible and try to latch-up with the fourth place CAR Magazine Yaris of Kyle Kock.

Although I was to start directly behind Willem, my immediate target was getting passed the Rola Yaris of Andries de Villiers starting on the opposite side.

As with Killarney, the first two corners would be under yellow flag conditions to avoid a possible mass accident of 25 of Toyota’s finest performance cars smashing into each other or into the barriers at once.

Race 1

From the rolling start and once out of turn two, I made a reasonable getaway but simply couldn’t mount a challenge on the Rola ahead car.

Trying my hardest as de Villiers and van der Putte squabbled, my hopes came to an end when a bad exit out of turn two ended with oversteer and a trip onto gravel.

Missing the outside wall, my race was over as I watched the IOL and Rola Yaris’ nearly come to blows on the final lap.

A race best described as sloppy and with too many off-road ventures, besides the turn two mishap, I knew I had blown my weekend and any chances of getting close to AutoTrader’s Lawrence Minnie, who lies fourth in the championship ahead of me.

Downhearted, I learned that my best time had, however, been enough to place me ahead of Willem for race two.

Race 2

As the lights went out, the IOL Yaris got the jump once again, but this time, I found myself also having to contend with the fast starting Halfway GR Corolla of an ever improving Kevin Crowie.

The Halfway man proceeded to pass me soon after, but after overtaking Willem as well, matters came unstuck as we went up the hill.

Having ducked and dived behind the pink IOL Yaris, a good exit out of turn four saw me take a deep breath and, using the passing lines, dive past him in front of Toyota HQ.

At the same time, I also overtook Crowie, who had gone in too deep and onto the gravel, dropping him behind Willem.

It wasn’t over, though, and after a mistake that saw me going wide, Willem retook my fifth position, but not for long.

Having lost a position to the NMI GR Corolla of Theo Brits, de Villiers found himself in front of van der Putte at the start of lap four.

The inevitable then happened as Willem’s attempt to pass at turn two saw the Rola Yaris come into contact with the IOL man.

Having had a grandstand view, evasive driving was required as Kevin and I took to the gravel to avoid the drama in front of us.

With my nearest rival gone, and the Halfway Corolla big in my mirrors, concentration was needed to score yet another fifth place finish.

This almost ended as I entered turn eight too fast with two laps to go and ended on the gravel, still with Kevin behind me.

With the NMI entry visible but well out of striking range, I entered turn two on my last lap to the sight of first the CAR Magazine Yaris and then the AutoTrader entry going slowly after an incident at the hairpin.

Keeping my foot down despite not knowing what had happened, I crossed the line to finish third behind race winner and championship leader, Nabil Abdool (SuperSport), and Phuti Mpyane (TimesLive).

As it happened, though, Lawrence had nursed his Yaris across the line and, based on his third place finish in race one and my sixth, had done enough in the combined overall results to finish third.

This meant that, despite finishing third on-track, my overall result for the day saw me in fourth place with a total time of 21:04:724 versus the AutoTrader man’s 20:56:543.

Next….

As much as luck had played its part in my third place finish, the omen couldn’t have come at a better time as the next round heads to the fastest and scariest track in South Africa, the East London Grand Prix Circuit on 19 July.

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