Toyota GR Cup reaches its most important round at Zwartkops
The halfway point in this year's championship returns to the Highveld for the first time since May, and where it all began for the participating media.
The previous round at Aldo Scribante saw the debut of the revised GR Yaris complete with the new eight-speed Direct Automatic Transmission and more powerful 1.6-litre engine. Image: Toyota Gazoo Racing
An expected level playing field will most certainly not be applicable at this weekend's fourth round of the Toyota GR Cup.
A month after the last round at Aldo Scribante, and second to use the upgraded Yaris fitted with the more powerful G16E-GTS three-cylinder 1.6-litre turbocharged engine and eight-speed Direct Automatic Transmission (DAT), the championship moves to where to current crop of motoring media's racing careers started, the Zwartkops Raceway outside Pretoria.
Driven yes, but not in anger
Unlike the shakedown test and getting to grips with the intricacies of motorsport back in March, the art of racing at high speed and in close proximity to other cars has no longer become scary and intimidating, but often personal and a thrill.
The fourth round of the series, and also of the National Extreme Festival, serves as the first visit back on the Highveld since Kyalami in May, and, unlike the actual driving encompassing practice, qualifying and two races, comes with a different challenge.
Besides being the home of the Toyota GR Academy, and therefore taking place before the brand's high-ranking executives, the supposed level playing field is unlikely to be of concern for the following reasons.
ALSO READ: Return to home ground counts for little in Toyota GR Cup thriller
While all of the media have had experience of the circuit either during the shakedown and/or on the simulator, racing at full tilt will be something new.
During the former, the grid was frequented by only the six media GR Yaris' and two GR Corollas driven by GR instructors Paul de Vos and Devon Scott.
This time around, the field will include the GR Academy GR86s and the selected GR dealers campaigning the GR Corollas to make about over 20 entrants.
Zwartkops: A proper challenge
Along with the tight and fast confines of Zwartkops compared to Aldo Scribante or Killarney, the challenge is much greater as either panel bashing will take place, or in the worst possible case, making a new friend called armco barrier.
Notwithstanding being under the microscope of Toyota's top brass, the circuit itself has proven over time to be unforgivable.
Admittedly, no longer the fast challenge of the old track torn up nearly three decades ago, the focus on being a spectator spectacle means there is no place to hide when you get it wrong.
Whereas the first corner is taken flat or accompanied with a lift, getting the turn two hairpin right presents a surprising challenge.
Despite appearing as easy as hitting brakes and flicking the paddles, or leaving the 'box to its own devices, getting it right will depend on the method of entry of the car in front, your entry line and whether you are prepared to risk it all for an overtake on the inside.
The backstraight 'complex' of turns three and four come next. Also flat, the latter remains the most daunting as it requires the biggest decision; take it at full chat and possibly risk going off, or lift and lose speed or even a place.
From here, the short track up the hill to turns five and six past Toyota GR Academy HQ demands not only confidence in braking, but trust in the driver next to you should you enter it side-by-side.
Always the scene of accidents ranging from panel bashing to being beached in the outside gravel bed, the skillset in getting it right will pay-off heading down through turn seven and into another flashpoint, the final turn eight hairpin.
Another corner that requires patience and not being a last moment hero, getting enough drive will have the benefit of latching on to the car ahead and hopefully with enough momentum for an overtake either at turns one or two.
Learning not done
What's more, the second race with the self-shifting GR Yaris will be another learning curve as shakedown took place with the previous generation fitted with the six-speed manual 'box.
Although likely to be easier given the lack of a clutch pedal, it still remains a new car and thus, will most probably be understood in full come the next round in East London in July.
For the moment though, the halfway marker in the championship will still be important for The Citizen, who lies fifth in the series after five fifth place finishes and one sixth.
Still on target
Runaway championship leader Nabil Abdool (SuperSport) has so far not been beaten and arrives at Zwartkops with a full house of points (42), having one six out of six so far.
CAR Magazine's Kyle Kock sits second on 29 and TimesLive's Phuti Mpyane third on 25. AutoTrader's Lawrence Minnie occupies fourth on 18 ahead of yours truly on 11 and IOL/Independent's Willem van der Putte on 7.
Although far from being balanced on a knife edge, the expectation to do well, not embark on an argy-bargy spell at Toyota's home event, and still give it everything will be top of mind when the lights go out on Saturday (21 June).
NOW READ: Kyalami deals cruel hand to The Citizen in Toyota GR Cup
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TimesLIVE
4 days ago
- TimesLIVE
A strong showing for TimesLIVE rookie racer at Zwartkops Raceway
The fourth leg of the Extreme Festival powered by Coca-Cola came and went at the Zwartkops raceway in Pretoria at the weekend. As part of the GR Cup media challenge competing for TimesLIVE against motoring journalists from four other local publications, and a regional manager from SuperSport, we share the racing space with Toyota dealers in GR Corollas and Toyota development drivers in GR 86 coupes in the largest single grouping of racing machinery and bodies in the series. Again the large GR Cup field lived up to its promise of action with 25 cars roaring off the starting blocks. The six development drivers started at a fair distance to lessen the chaos while the GR Yaris/Corolla pack fielded 19 cars after a few debutants from the Toyota dealer network. SuperSport's Nabil Abdool was in his element as usual, qualifying at the top of the field with a time of 1:11.571 for race one. In second place was dealer man Mario de Sousa (Motus Toyota) in a GR Corolla with a 1:12.013 and in third place was GR Academy manager Devon Scott with a time of 1:12.166 in one of the older GR Yaris manuals. I started fourth on the media/dealer grid for race one at midday after posting a qualifying time of 1:12.324 early on Saturday morning, ahead of the MD of the Toyota Gazoo Racing driving academy Paul de Vos with 1:12.434. Heat one got off without a hitch, but seldom do race drivers malign motorsport for its inherent frights and dangers, at least not in public or in the heat of the moment. While that is not a baseless critique expressed mostly in the aftermath, one cannot guarantee an incident-free outing or the trading of coats of paint when racing and which nearly happened to me on lap two when De Vos capitalised on the smallest of gaps to squeeze past me. In a split second decision to sustain the pressure and risk a mirror or something worse, I chose to relinquish the position, waving the Toyota man on his way, thus gifting class peer Abdool an extra cushion in the process. It was a lost cause, though, as Abdool had opened a sizeable gap between himself and the chasing trio of De Sousa, Scott and De Vos. Meanwhile, our front running skirmish had opened up a comfortable lead from the rest of the field and I finished race one in fifth, but second in the class. Race two started after 3pm with me not in a better position in fifth overall, but still second in our GR Yaris class behind Abdool. Again, the racing was a hard charged affair so much that our class experienced its first racing incident since the series began in March. Lawrence Minnie of AutoTrader connected with Kyle Kock of Car Magazine, with the latter's car suffering terminal damage and limping off to the pits. Minnie was able to finish the race and collected maximum points. My points haul has improved my position in the overall driver standings. I occupy second place behind Abdool, with three more races left in the series. Zwartkops was an otherwise fantastic outing for racing. There were no injuries from any of the racing incidents, thankfully, and the spectators added to the magic, some of them arriving at 5am to secure top spot for viewing. The round five race will be held in East London on July 19. We hope to meet and greet some the TimesLIVE readers from the region.
The Citizen
4 days ago
- The Citizen
From zero to almost podium hero in Toyota GR Cup stunner
Halfway mark in this year's series at Zwartkops saw The Citizen finish third on-track in race two, but just out of reach of an overall podium for the day. The Citizen's GR Cup rookie bounced back from a terrible race one finish, to place third in race two. Image: Toyota Gazoo Racing 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 said truth 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 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. ALSO READ: Return to home ground counts for little in Toyota GR Cup thriller 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. Zwartkops yielded the biggest field of Toyota GR Cup cars, 25, in the season's four-year history. Image: Toyota Gazoo Racing 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 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 hairpin, 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 practise, 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 a 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. A spin during second practise, fortunately, didn't repeat itself in either of the two races. Image: Toyota Gazoo Racing 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 needles to say, my confidence had been shattered, not helped by the car going into the 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 through caution out of 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 with 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 on 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 watched the IOL and Rola Yaris' nearly coming to blows on the final lap. A race best described as sloppy and with one of 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 in race 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 content 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 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 pass him in front of Toyota HQ. At the same time, I also overtook Crowie, who had gone in to 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. A ballsy overtook in front of Toyota GR headquarters paid-off early for The Citizen in race two. Image: Toyota Gazoo Racing The inevitable then happened as Willem's attempt to pass at turn two saw the Rola Yaris come to into contact with the IOL man. Having had a grandstand view, evasive driving was required as myself and Kevin 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). It is also 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 played 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. NOW READ: Kyalami deals cruel hand to The Citizen in Toyota GR Cup
The South African
4 days ago
- The South African
Make or break meeting for SA F1 GP this weekend in Austria
Major steps to secure a multi-billion-Rand SA F1 GP deal will be taken this weekend in Spielberg, Austria. The Formula 1 circus moves on to the Red Bull Ring in the Styrian mountains this weekend, but it's not just on-track action that will be top of mind for F1 fans. Numerous media reports confirm that South African Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie, and other officials, are en route for the make or break SA F1 GP meeting. If speculation is to be believed, it's understood the Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit will make a long-awaited return to the F1 calendar after 35 years (in 2028). Here's what an SA F1 GP looked like 32-years ago, in 1993. Image: File There are multiple projects aligned with F1's mission to add new races to its existing 24-race calendar (Rwanda, Thailand, etc). However, it's the missing continent of Africa that holds the greatest appeal. Just last week, the Kyalami GP Circuit near Johannesburg had its upgrade plans approved by the FIA. Circuit owner Toby Venter described the necessary upgrades to move from Grade 2 to F1-ready Grade 1 as 'light touch.' The FIA gave the circuit three years (till 2028) to complete the necessary work. And now the Sports Minister and other officials are preparing to secure the major SA F1 GP deal. Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie, Gauteng Premier Lesufi and Kyalami's Toby Venter at Kyalami. Image: File 'We will meet with Formula One Management (FOM) in Austria this week,' an upbeat McKenzie told eNCA . FOM refers to the Liberty Media-owned F1 management team that will be at the Austrian GP this weekend. 'We want to submit an official SA F1 GP bid. The week after that – on Tuesday 1 July 2025 – we will announce who our winning SA F1 GP promoter will be. After that, it is all in the hands of Formula 1,' McKenzie revealed. The historic Kyalami circuit has hosted no less than 21 F1 races over the years, until its last in 1993. Circuit owners have engaged with Apex Circuit Design – known for the Miami Grand Prix project – to oversee the necessary F1-ready circuit upgrades. 'We have a circuit (Kyalami GP), we will have a promoter, and we have the biggest motorsport community in Africa. Bring on the SA F1 GP,' concluded McKenzie – with GMM Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1. Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news.
