Has Etienne van der Linde got his mojo back? It certainly looks like it and he has planted his BMW 3-series firmly on pole position for today’s Bridgestone Production Car races at Zwartkops Raceway outside Pretoria.
“About time!” he commented happily of his first pole of the year.
But it wasn’t a cakewalk and sharing the front row – just one-tenth of a second adrift – is Subaru pilot Hennie Groenewald, who is something of a Zwartkops specialist. But it was bittersweet: a missed gearshift – from fifth to second instead of fifth to fourth – resulted in the engine buzzing to 10 500 rpm and self-destructing in the process.
Third place went to the second Beemer of Capetonian Johan Fourie, the first time he has been outqualified by his team-mate this year. Melvill Priest, in his distinctive royal blue Audi S4, was fourth, a position with which he was more than comfortable.
In class T the Mini of Lee Thompson was out front, a mere few-hundredths of a second ahead of Graeme Nathan – who as expected pulled something out of the bag in qualifying. His team mate Jacques Joubert was third, with Gavin Cronje fourth in the second Mini – who admitted to being too tentative on his hot lap.
Gary Formato was able to emulate his times from Friday, but not his position: he was fifth fastest in the Focus ST Ecoboost, though just hundredths of a second separated third from fifth.
“That’s as fast as the car can go at the moment, and we’ll have to see how it pans out in the race,” said the former champion.
A total of 17 cars qualified, but there may only be 16 starters for the first nine lapper, which gets underway at 12:10 with the Subaru crew having their work cut out to change Groenewald’s engine – a task which normally takes four hours.
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