Knife-edge finish to National Endurance Series’ Kyalami 4-Hour

Close racing, unexpected class winners and great spectacle typified round four of the South African Endurance Series at Kyalami on Saturday.

The 4 Hours of Kyalami produced various leaders in all of its classes and a dramatic finish, when the overall winners were forced to execute a “splash and dash” refueling stop with less than 10 minutes of the event left to run.

Final results

The winners were Nick Adcock, Michael Jensen and Charl Visser, aboard their Nova NP02 prototype.

They finished on the same lap as second placed crew Axcil Jefferies and Philipp Baron (Lamborghini Huracan), who led the race before power steering problems lost them time in the pits.

Third, a minute further back, were Stuart White and Xolile Letlaka in the second Lamborghini Huracan, leading home the Porsche 911 GT3 of Arnold Neveling and Charl Arangies, plus the Promigen Audi R8 LMS GT3 of Karah Hill and Bradley Liebenberg.

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In Class B, Damian Hammond/Wayne Roach (Lamborghini Huracan) took the victory, the Volkswagen Golf GTI of Bruno Campos/Marcos Rodrigues/Joao Rebelo Martins won Class C, and the Volkswagen SuperPolo of David and Roberto Franco raised the silverware in Class D.

Class E, which is also the standalone Backdraft Roadster National Championship, was won by Mozambican Pedro Garcia, Andre Bettencourt and Cristian Bouche, ahead of Gavin Rooke and Richard van Heerde, and Anthony Hoare, CJ Blackman and JP Briner.

The Index of Performance, which recognises lap time consistency over the whole event, was also won by the Mozambican team, while Stuart Armstrong and Leo Branders in another Backdraft finished second.

Practice and qualifying

During Friday’s second practice session, Audi driver Paul Hill fell ill. That led to his daughter Karah getting her first drive in the sports car, joining regular championship contender Liebenberg.

Jurie Swart, her regular teammate in the Volkswagen Polo, had to switch out of the 4-Hour and drive solo in the 1-Hour sprint.

With Henk Lategan away testing with Toyota in the Rally-Raid championship Hilux, his place was taken by saloon car ace Robert Wolk.

Friday’s biggest drama came when the Cobra of Johan Minaar/Leonard Marshall/Craig Czank had the left rear wheel part company with the car in the mineshaft, fortunately with only severe bodywork damage.

The Kia Picanto of Mozambicans Pedro Garcia, Andre Bettencourt and Cristian Bouche was parked with mechanical maladies and the team swopped to a spare Backdraft – later proven to be a brilliant decision.

After official qualifying, the Huracan of Axcil Jeffries and Philipp Baron topped the time sheets with a cumulative time of one minute 41:04 seconds – the grid being decided by the average of each driver’s time.

How events unfolded

After Saturday’s race start, Stuart White took an early lead ahead of the sister car of Jeffries, Bradley Liebenberg, the Nova NP02 and the Neveling/Arangies Porsche.

Just before the one-hour mark, the Anthony Blunden/Ricci Gionnocarro McLaren spun at Barbecue Corner, requiring the deployment of the safety car and their retirement.

The 1-Hour Sprint was comfortably won by Jurie Swart from the two Shelby CanAms of Mike Verrier Antonie Marx, and the Ligier JS53 Evo 2 of Juan Pierre Stander.

At the halfway mark, the Jeffries/Baron Lamborghini led with 60 laps completed,  just more than a minute up on the Hill/Liebenberg Audi with the Adcock/Jensen/Visser NP02 in third.

Karah Hill took over from Bradley Liebenberg and slipped back to fifth in the process, promoting the White/Letlaka Lamborghini into fourth.

With the clock beginning to wind down there was some settling in the classes to allow race strategy to play out.

Heading towards the final hour, Jeffries and Baron set its best lap of the race on one minute 41: 894 for an average speed of 140.138 km/h to extend their lead to 18 minutes over the Nova 02 trio with the second Lamborghini in third from the Porsche and the Audi.

Then the leading Lambo started to leak steering pump fluid which forced two pit stops during the final 30 minutes of the race.

Thus, with the very rapid Charl Visser at the wheel, the Nova NP02 took over the lead, in the process, Visser putting in a lap averaging 142.420 km/h.

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