Toyota GR Cup in East London turns out to be a battle of survival

While there were plenty of thrills and spills over the first four rounds of the Toyota GR Cup, the fifth stop in East London has overtaken the lot.

Roller-coaster is the most accurate description of the emotions the motoring media drivers experienced on the first track to host a Formula 1 race in South Africa. Daunting yet exhilarating.

While the six GR Corolla pilots left East London in the same formation in the GR Cup title race as the started the weekend in, drama galore resulted in plenty of big point swings that resulted in the championship staying alive.

GR Cup qualifying starts with crash

Five practice sessions over two days – preluded by some time on the simulator – had the racers as well prepared for a new track as we’ve been all season. But then Saturday qualifying tossed up an incident that no-one can ever prepare for.

Bernie Hellberg (Driven) lost control over his car through the high-speed Rifle Bend, which resulted in him darting from across the track. The car hit the tyre barriers on the inside in front, flipped over and came to a rest on its wheels. Much to our relief Hellberg managed to get out and walk away with only a bruised thumb, but the car was a wreck and his day was done.

Runaway leader Sean Nurse (AutoTrader) converted his pole into his ninth consecutive win during Race 1, ahead of Alex Shahini (Carmag) and Toyota Exec Anand Pather.

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Double dose of bad luck

TV man Hannes Visser (L’at Wiel) was right on the pace all week, but contact with a Yaris through Complex resulted in some damaged body work around his front tyre. He was forced to retire two laps from the finish, resulting in Kumbi Mtshakazi (Kumbi-M on Cars) and The Citizen finishing fourth and fifth respectively.

As Nurse was leading the pack out for the formation before Race 2 to try and take the championship with a win, he had no power to due a technical issue and finished before he even started.

Visser’s bad luck continued in the fast fading daylight a few minutes later when the tyre came off his front left wheel in the Rifle Bend. Fortunately he managed to keep control of his car and left the track not even halfway through the first lap.

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Biltong Italian rules

In quickly deteriorating daylight, Shahini made the most of the retirements and took the chequered flag ahead of Pather, Mtshakazi and The Citizen Motoring. Our Biltong Italian, Pather and Mtshakazi also took the day’s honours in that order.

Overall, Nurse leads with 63 points with Shahini up to 44. Visser is still third on 30, but The Citizen (26) has closed the gap to four points. Mtshakazi (24) has in turn closed the gap on us, with Hellberg still stuck on 15.

There is a lot to play for still in the last two round in Killarney and Zwartkops. But for the next two months, the drivers will have time to lick their wounds while the Toyota GR Corollas will get some TLC in the workshop.