For the second entry to the diary of an aspiring racer, Kyle Kock faces fear and trusts his instincts in the Toyota GR Cup…
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With my first race weekend under my belt, much of the anxiety of driving a race-prepared car has lifted. Still, round two of the Toyota GR Cup at Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit was a massive undertaking for the Media Challenge rookies. The storied 4.522 km venue has hosted international and local racing legends in a variety of formulae, and its 16 turns require a cool head and consistency for competitive times.
S stands for sacrifice
In some S bends, a consecutive right into left – or in the case of The Esses at Kyalami, left into right – requires the sacrifice of your entry speed into the first bend in order to get a better run out of the second. I learned this the hard way, scrubbing off speed with understeer and then having to straighten the wheels before hitting the gravel to save the car during first practice. Fortunately, this happened early in the proceedings, and I could make the necessary adjustments for the rest of the weekend.
Use the data
For the second round, the Garmin Catalyst data loggers used by competitors in last year’s GR Cup were present and plugged in. These devices record your laps and stitch together your fastest sectors to make a one-lap pace suggestion – essentially a perfect lap based on your current speed. More importantly, for me at least, was that during sessions, I glanced over at it because it also displays current pace, whether you’re up or down on your fastest lap.
Race report
The major difference between this round and the first was that this race week included two practice sessions on Thursday 10 April. This was followed by a third practice session on Friday 11 April and a qualifying session thereafter, so Saturday 12 April would be dedicated to racing only. Lady Luck smiled down on me as the weather forecast for race weekend was sunny and hot. My first session yielded a fastest lap of 2:14.182 while I explored the track limits, with an unceremonious off entering The Esses. After reviewing the onboard footage, courtesy of the Garmin Catalyst data logger plugged into my #88 GR Yaris, and some sage advice from fellow racers, a more measured approach to second practice resulted in an improvement to 2:12.838.
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After the overnight rest, later braking into Crowthorne and rotating the GR Yaris on the brakes into Barbeque during third practice brought my fastest lap down to 2:11.167, but I came in after just 5 laps to save my tyres for qualifying. It was time to trust the Yaris’ all-wheel drive system fully, and for the first time over the weekend, I switched from Sport to Track mode (moving the front-to-rear torque split from 30:70 to 50:50) and didn’t hit the brake pedal in the Mineshaft. This brought my lap time average down significantly, and I posted a quickest lap of 2:09.725 – fifth fastest overall, and third on the shared grid behind pole-sitter and fellow GR Cup Media Challenge contender Nabil Abdool and the hard-charging Dealer Challenge’s Mario de Sousa in a Motus GR Corolla.
Although I’d been warned to watch the lights at the start, I was caught napping by TimesLive’s Phuti Mpyane, who gained a car length on me by the time we had rounded The Kink. I felt confident in how I’d warmed up the Dunlop semi-slicks and hit the anchors just after Mpyane, which allowed me to regain second place just before the Crowthorne’s apex. I could only try to hang onto Abdool and de Sousa as they quickly cut through the field of GR86s, and got caught up momentarily by Brandon van der Walt and Justin Rogers, and ran alone to the finish
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The second race’s grid was shaken up by Gazoo Racing Academy instructor Paul de Vos starting ahead of me, with the NMI GR Corolla of Theo Brits alongside my GR Yaris. Another error at the start granted Brits the advantage off the line, and into Crowthorne I had to pull off a manoeuvre similar to what I’d executed in my exchange with Mpyane in the previous race. Tucked behind de Vos, I beat my qualifying time with a 2:09.518, but was slightly slower overall in what was a fairly uneventful race 2. The two results were good enough for P2 overall for the day.
Although we had expected to meet our new race-prepared 2025 GR Yaris steeds for round two, which delivers an extra 12 kW and 40 N.m more through an automatic transmission with paddle shift over the 2022 manual models that the Media Challenge has been running with, we’ve been assured that they’ll be ready for the next meeting at Aldo Scribante Race Circuit in Gqeberha.
Find the full feature in the June 2025 issue of CAR Magazine.
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