Welcome back, to South Africa, to the Kyalami 9 Hours just outside of the capitol city of Johannesburg, for the finale of the 2021 SRO Intercontinental GT Challenge. 2021? But wait. It is 2022? Well, as we all are aware, the global pandemic, which hopefully will be trailing off just a bit, has affected the date placement of this motor race. We have a smallish field of 13 entries ready to go including eight overall IGTC GT3 contenders and a number of national South African teams, ready to race in the 9 Hours today, for the first event for SRO IGTC at Kyalami since a thriller in 2019.
The date may be different. Rain could still play a factor in the race, but maybe just briefly and more towards the beginning than the end. In 2019, an incredible South African thunderstorm had bearing on how the outcome shaped up. What will happen this year, in 2022? We are about to find out. Mercedes will lead the field to green today courtesy of the #89 AKKA ASP Mercedes AMG GT3, Raffaele Marciello of Italy is the starting driver, sharing with Frenchman Jules Gounon, and Russia's Timur Boguslavskiy. Mercedes, Ferrari, Audi, and Lamborghini, will be the notable brands in this year's race. No efforts entered by BMW or Porsche this year. BMW has the new M4 GT3. But, that car is just now in it's initial stages of development and initial stages of being acquired by customers.
We have seen the BMW in other championships already in 2022, IMSA, and Creventic, come to mind. We have made it to Africa, for the finale of the 2021 Intercontinental GT Challenge. Bruce Jones, John Watson, Harry Benjamin, and Amanda Busick are on the commentary team for today's motor race. Please make sure everyone can get through the first turn without contact. There used to be wide open spaces between the city and the track but now, the city has immensely grown. Sunset is one of the greatest corners here at Kyalami. Coming through there, the cars will be side by side. Watch out for the damp patches on the road. We do have fans here today.
Stephane Ratel, Founder and CEO of SRO says that because of the omicron virus variant, we were worried this race wouldn't happen. You have lots of endurance racing this time of the year and some cars could not be here because of the scheduling. But we do have some great teams competing. The weather could be a challenge, but we will have a great race today. We have had some wonderful races here in the past with the Kyalami 9 Hours. GT is the heart of what Intercontinental GT Challenge is all about. Prototypes are not a part of this series in any way.
Kyalami is the only internationally graded circuit in all of Africa. This race was the season closer of the World Sports Car Championship for a number of years. We will have more races in 2022 and we hope to see five races on the IGTC calendar. Valentino Rossi will also join in the SRO GT World Challenge Europe in 2022, the motorcycle legend and hero. He is changing over from bikes to cars and racing in SRO GT World Challenge. But, let us focus now on today's motor race.
We have an interview with pole man Raffaele Marciello. He says he is very calm and is focusing on the start, noting there is water on the road. Survival is the key. So is speed. There will be few safety cars because of the smaller grid. Speed. That is what we will be paying attention to. Nicklas Nielsen in one of the factory AF Corse Ferrari's, he knows it is a long race and his team is strong. The Dane is ready to go. Ferrari won the 24 Hours of Spa last summer of course. Nielsen was part of that driver lineup AF Corse have run in a number of sports car and GT championships recently.
Nicklas Nielsen is one of the championship contenders. Thank you SRO and IGTC. We have the South African National Anthem coming now. Ferrari have split their drivers and so have the Audi teams. Kenny Habul and SunEnergy1 have an outside shot. Mikael Grenier, the Canadian, will start. Raffaele Marciello is not in contention for the title. Timur Boguslavskiy, is. The race will be essentially won on outright speed as we listen to the South African national anthem.
That was a stirring rendition of the anthem. Now, it is time to race. We are getting ready for the recon lap, the formation lap. The third drivers on these teams are still in their civvies. They have yet to change into their Nomex racing overalls. Note the yellow trim on the AF Corse Ferrari. That is a tribute to the Ecurie Francorchamps team from Belgium that raced Ferrari's back in the 1960s and early '70s who ran cars in yellow, the Belgian national racing colors. Tschops Sipuka is a South African racing superstar. This is an all-African team. Tschops Sipuka is living a dream. 13 cars are ready to roll. A couple local teams are doing their own championship, racing for one hour.
They will peel off at the first pit stop. Ambient temperatures today are going to be comfortable enough to do double stints. Each team has their own strategy for today's motor race. Alessandro Pier Guidi is in contention for a championship, and it is his first race at Kyalami. The Ferrari, Mercedes, and Audi, those three will be scrapping with each other. Pier Guidi says Spa and Le Mans being in the same month, winning both races, are mega for AF Corse. The grid has been cleared. We also will watch the High Class Racing Audi with the Sharks rugby team from Durbin in South Africa.
Lucas Legeret will be the starting driver at Sainteloc. Mattia Drudi will start the WRT Audi. The #25 is in camouflage safari colors. Mikael Grenier from Canadas starts the SunEnergy1 Mercedes, car #75 with it's vibrant paint scheme. Next, Come Ledogar starts the #51 Ferrari along with Alessandro Pier Guidi and Nicklas Nielsen. Raffaele Marciello on pole for AKKA ASP Mercedes. We could see rain today. There are streams of water running down. Watch out for turns one and two, at Crowthorne and Jukskei Sweep.
There is also standing water inside Sunset corner. Everywhere else is good, but the track has been washed clean. We did have support races for the local South African championships. We were due to have three qualifying sessions, so we got the sessions washed out. The High Class Audi stalls and then gets going, Michael Markussen starting the car. Silvio Scribante, another local driver, is only running the opening hour. His brother Aldo, we thought was also entered, but probably not. Now, the cars are going to be compacted around the course. Don't try winning the motor race on lap one.
The drop between Leeukop and Mineshaft is extreme. Check that out. We had a bumper grid of cars fr this race in 2019 with a wild race before the pandemic. We are back now. Here come the cars through Crocodile and Cheetah. The curbs in Cheetah have been bounded over by every car. The field forms up in Noah's Ark formation. Red lights on and flash to green. Go! Who leads into the first turn? Marciello in the Mercedes leads now. The top six are in grid order. Well done for this first lap. We've seen the first four turns now into Barbeque and Sunset.
Everyone is single file, taking it easy. Marciello leads this motor race and Mikael Pitamber is moving forward in his drive of the opening hour as Marciello is whistling off into the distance. The Gounon, Marciello, Boguslavskiy car has to win to take the title. The Ferrari's are laying back right now as Marciello is definitely in the lead of the motor race. 1:46.5 fastest lap time so far. The race is settling down already. Up to eighth is Charl Arangies in the #86 Stradale Motorsports Lamborghini. Mattia Drudi, the sub for Dries Vanthoor is moving up, right on Mikael Grenier's six.
Markus Winkelhock too, in another of the Audi's is moving up. Maximum single stint drive time is 65 minutes. Any time penalties will really fowl up your chances. Pit calculations will come into play if we have a safety car. Wowzers. We have a good scrap there with Charl Arangies in the Lamborghini being followed by one of the Sainteloc Audi's. Coming to this track for the African drivers, is to challenge themselves against the greatest drivers in the world. One second, Marciello leads Alessio Rovera.
Marciello is 1.4 seconds up ahead of Rovera, Come Ledogar, Mikael Grenier, and others. Mattia Drudi and Markus Winkelhock are having a bear of a time right now trying to keep up with the top of the shop here. Through Leeukop they go again. Again, this circuit used to be out in the country. Tony Venter, the promoter here at Kyalami, he has really put this speed palace back on the map. WRT have a great technical crew and could well be in it to win it along with the Benz teams and the Ferrari teams. Kenny Habul, Martin Konrad, and Mikael Grenier, these three blokes could also have something to say before this motor race ends later this evening.
These GT3 cars are fairly equal in performance. We talked about this yesterday, during the horrid rainstorm, pace will be critical and no errors on the pit stops. When we get to the point of pit stops, you've got to be careful. You cannot fuel the car and put the race car on the air jacks to change the tires. Don't pull the airline for the air jacks until the car is filled with petrol. Alessio Rovera is eating into the race lead held by Marciello. Six laps now completed. Maybe Come Ledogar is falling into the clutches of the Audi's. Hard to say. Mattia Drudi is the leading Audi ahead of Markus Winkelhock.
Winkelhock is pushing hard already. Can Winkelhock take the fight to Drudi? They lap past the one Audi GT4 entry in the field. Marius Jackson at the controls. He is an amateur South African driver. Those two Audi's are in those camouflage safari colors. The taupe car ahead of the olive drab green entry. The Bathurst 12 Hours, the next race, the first of 2022, will be in May. These races have been swapped around and the logistics are a nightmare. It's this cursed pandemic, sadly. The Bathurst 12 Hours has now been moved to May. There are GT3 cars here in South Africa, or, they are going to Australia.
Charl Arangies is now moving up from 12th place on the grid. He is really coming to the fore for the national ZAF drivers. Mikael Pitamber too, is pressing on, and so is Xolilie Letlaka who crunched the tire barriers yesterday and barely ran on Friday. Marciello is making ground back. Starting another lap, Marciello has about a second gap ahead of the Ferrari's who are really keeping him honest. Mikael Grenier is closing in and the same is true with Markus Winkelhock on Mattia Drudi. This is a very comeptitive motor race with only 17 minutes now on the board.
The two factory Audi's have nicknames. Elisa and Ida Lorena. Through Mineshaft and Cheetah they go, followed by Ingwe, which is African for leopard. The leading contenders are in four pairs to be honest. That is what we are seeing, and have a long, long way to go. Charl Arangies is booking it. He is racing now at 236 kilometers per hour. Arangies leads Lucas Legeret right now for seventh place. Legeret has the pace, and can he close up on Arangies? Not quite. He is still unsure of making a move. Maybe he is holding his cards to his chest at the moment.
Through Clubhouse, Legeret is going to push. He is a young bloke and his future is bright in the GT racing realm. 20-30 years ago, these blokes would have been racing open wheeled cars. Not anymore. There are factory seats in sports car racing coming up. Now, Legeret wants it, but Arangies is not going to give it to him. It was available. Uh oh. Arangies has smoke spewing out of the back of that motorcar. What is that? There was a wisp of smoke there, look. Maybe there's fluid leaking out of that car, some oil or transmission fluid or something. Maybe the right rear tire is going flat. Hard to say if that is bodywork rubbing on a tire, or if it is some form of fluid. Legeret... book it. He makes the pass.
Poor old Arangies is slowing down. He needs to head for the pit lane. "Charl, pit now" his team tells him on the radio. They have a new tire to replace, a new Pirelli P Zero. But, they need all four tires. Are they going to refuel the car? The gap has increased again as Come Ledogar chases Raffaele Marciello. Drudi and Winkelhock are still fighting each other. Watch your brake temps, your oil temps and so forth. There must be a mechanical issue for that Lamborghini we've seen. They are pulling the #86 entry into the garage. There was some kind of fluid out of that car, leaking onto the exhaust system.
He was pushing hard but will now be on the back foot, will Charles Arangies. Through The Mineshaft, we can see what the speeds are. Right now we have Come Ledogar running fastest at 209 kilometers an hour while everyone else in the tpp five are at 207-208 kilometers an hour. So, that's around 130 miles an hour. Marciello is pressing hard and he has the whole "Clockwork Orange" thing going on, like the book. He has orange dyed hair and now, running like clockwork. 15 laps completed, make that 16. We are 16 laps, 45 miles in. Meanwhile, Winkelhock is chasing Drudi, and through Clubhouse, Drudi has responded, but Drudi, he is really giving it some welly right now. Marius Jackson stays out of the way through The Mineshaft.
Winkelhock has to press Drudi, but not compromise his own automobile. Bish, bash, bosh. Winkelhock makes the pass successfully. In the Stradale Motorsports camp, they are ready to race again. They had a fender liner scraping on a tire, and they are back in business now. Arnold Neveling, his co-driver says that he, Charl Arangies, and third co-driver, Michael van Rooyen, are going to play the long game. Drudi stayed to the right and let Markus Winkelhock sashay right through. That is intelligent team management. Don't let your two drivers get into a boxing match early in the motor race. That's nonsense.
Mattia Drudi, we have seen his talent. Meanwhile, Raffaele Marciello is on a Saturday cruise already. Marciello and company are pulling away from the Ferrari boys. Marciello can be a fighter, but he is also a smooth, metronomic, fast pilot. He is a joy to watch behind the wheel of a Mercedes AMG GT3. He is a superstar. We are not anticipating Full Course Yellows or safety cars in this race because of the small field. Timur Boguslavskiy is still sleepy. He seems to have just awakened. Well, mate, get some breakfast and be ready to go. If you strip away the Mercedes factor, Ferrari, the Scuderia are still in the pound seats for the championship title.
AKKA ASP is just focused on winning the motor race. Points are not necessarily what they need to worry about right now. Nicklas Nielsen is still ahead in the points over Alesandro Pier Guidi and Come Ledogar. Alessio Rovera is eight seconds up on the sister Ferrari. Ferrari are going for a championship title. By the time we finish it will be 10PM. Whoa! We've got a wee bit of rain here. It is starting to spritz with rain. Now, we might just need to see what the weather does. Hold your fire on the tire front, lads.
Sainteloc in the lane. This is the #26, Lucas Legeret. Driver change time? Nope. Not yet. Maybe they began the motor race with the fuel tank half or 3/4 full. Now, we saw three random raindrops and we don't have more rain at least for the time being. Marciello has now run 23 laps, 4.4 seconds ahead. The water is still flowing like leaving a faucet on. The gap is 4.7 seconds between Marciello and Rovera. The best laps we see are in the 1:43 bracket at the present time. We have spritzes of rain at Clubhouse corner. Track limits being exceeded at Ingwe. Right on the limit. Look out for track limits, please.
Rovera is now right on Legeret's six and has passed the alpped Audi. Rovera was being monstered but Lucas Legeret has fresh, green tires. Everyone else is on used Pirelli tires. The fans wave their flags and are having a blast here at the track. So, Marciello still leads by 4.7 seconds, but Alessio Rovera has had a clearer lap last time by. A few drivers are being warned about track limits which are cumulative. Now, Mikael Grenier moves past Xolile Letlaka. Don't go offline to the dirty part of the road. That is through the esses up to Leeukop.
Charl Arangies is back in the motor race but is now four laps down. Ledogar runs ahead of Grenier by 1.8 seconds and poor old Charl Arangies and company are still having tales of woe at Stradale Motorsports Lamborghini. They have just a few more minutes before they finish their race and let everyone else keep racing. Marciello, the Swiss pilot, he is well ahead of Alessio Rovera and he does not have to take risks. Marciello does not need to be impatient. He has one of the lapped Lamborghini's ahead.
No worries. The yellow Lamborghini gives him the space. Timur Boguslavskiy is now suited and booted. That was Silvio Scribante. The Scribante team, they are legends here in South African motorsport. They've been doing it for six decades. Mikel Pitamber is next up. He is doing one hour of this race in one car and swapping to another car for the rest of the race. Trap speeds are now between 167 kilometers and 170 kilometers an hour. 106-107 miles an hour. Markus Winkelhock just can't get on terms with Mikael Grenier.
Ledogar and Grenier are making a move on the Audi. Be careful out there. Around the outside, there's not much there. Legeret is still blocking. You can't flash your lights more than three times. Grenier is really upset about being trapped behind the Audi and he finally clears him. Grenier can't be happy, muttering Anglo Saxon oaths under his helmet. The Sainteloc Audi boys are strategizing for the long haul. Now, with the Stradale Lamborghini, they were having a power steering issue, but they are back in the fight now. Markus Winkelhock, meanwhile, wants to catch Mikael Grenier. Legeret just has to let these leading blokes go by.
What's the password? Audi? No. It's 5927. 5927, yes. We still have streams on the road. Silvio Scribante has moved around Mikael Pitamber. Pitamber is going to swap in the MJR Audi GT4 along with Marius Jackson and Mo Mia. Pitamber is running very well in the Audi right now, staying right with the European professional drivers as we get close to the end of the opening hour before we see pit action. Mikael Pitamber lets both Alession Rovera and Mikkel Grenier by. The scrap between Pitamber and Scribante is still on, but poor old Pitamber is stymied for the moment. In replay, Silvio Scribante had a factory Ferrari behind. He passed Pitamber, and Ptiamber was pushing, but Silvio Scribante, the chap knows how to drive a race car and he went for it.
Poor old Mikael Grenier, though, he just can't get by Come Ledogar. He must be losing a wee bit of patience at the very least between Leeukop and The Mineshaft, burying the throttle as they head for Crocodile and Cheetah. They are just clipping the curbs into Cheetah and through Inge, through Leopard corner, as the tires are starting to slide around, and things might be getting a tad greasy out there on the road. Mikkel Pitamber is moving in on Silvio Scribante. Pitamber is right on Scribante's six. Holy cow!
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