Potchefstroom sailplane pilot, Oscar Goudriaan is leading the World FAI Sailplane Grand Prix final which is being held at the Potchefstroom airfield.
The first three days of the Sailplane Grand Prix final produced some close and exciting racing with Tuesday’s 360km race being won by Goudriaan at 150 kilometres per hour. Goudriaan´s win has put him in first place overall but only two points ahead of Sebastian Kawa (Poland), Andy Davis (United Kingdom), Holger Karow (Germany) and Mike Young (United Kingdom).
The closeness of the results reflects the great racing witnessed with only seconds between some finishes and a tie for third place in race two. Each race has contained some very exciting moments where pilots have been rewarded or punished for taking different routes and decisions. When the average speed is 150km/h, even one turn in the wrong place can cost a place at the finish and points towards the final result.
The first two races were held in more difficult conditions. With showers and lower operating altitudes, these variable conditions levelled any performance differences in the sailplanes. Tuesday’s race in good South African racing weather exposed the small performance differences between the later EVO models of the JS1 and the earlier JS1 models. Both Simon Schroeder (Germany) and Jan Omsels (Germany) experienced the frustration of not quite being able to absolutely match the performance of the EVO version at the high speeds required to win.
The live coverage of the races has been interrupted by Internet connection issues between the servers transferring the data from South Africa to Europe and back to us in Potchefstroom. The weather for the next four days of racing looks promising and the race presentation with live commentary is working well. Given an improvement in the internet service, fans will be able to follow the entire race live each afternoon. With four more days of racing to go and four points separating the seven top pilots, nothing is settled yet. With strong conditions expected to hold, will this favour the local wildcard, or will the pilots from Europe catch up on the techniques of flying the South African monster energy lines? Check out https://sgp.aero/finals2016 for all the news.
