Nick Adcock, Michael Jensen and Charl Michael Visser powered their Adjust for Sleep/Rico Barlow Racing Nova Proto NP02 to a 12.6 second victory in the fourth round of the SA Endurance Championship Connected by Vodacom 4U.
The Four Hours of Kyalami produced a thrilling fight between Xolile Letlaka, Stuart White and Axcil Jefferies in their Into Africa Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo II and the RBR team as penalties, a brief rain shower, a new lap record and punctures kept the warring teams’ strategists on their toes across four enthralling hours at the legendary Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit.
Letlaka and White remain at the top of the overall championship standings while Adcock moved into second place with two rounds remaining.
Brad Liebenberg and Ryan Naicker rounded out the podium in their Stradale Motorsport Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo after overcoming their own set of issues which dropped them out of the battle for overall honours.
Qualifying:
Rico Barlow Racing set the fastest aggregate time to claim pole position where Visser set the team’s fastest lap of 1:39.929, the quickest ever recorded around Kyalami. Making the feat even more remarkable was that Adcock and Jensen flew in from a test session at Silverstone in England just in time to take part in Free Practice Two late on Thursday afternoon.
Into Africa Racing lined up second, 0.37 seconds behind the Nova with Jefferies starring for the team. A further six tenths back was the Stradale Audi of Bradley Liebenberg and Ryan Naicker in third followed by the leading 1-Hour Dash team, Charl Arangies in his Vaal Fluid Systems Porsche 911 GT3 R.
Damien Hammond made a late switch to Samlin Racing’s new Liqui-Moly Mercedes-AMG GT3 and set the fifth fastest time followed by Hein and Henk Lategan in their SAC Commercial Parts Porsche GT3 Cup in sixth, followed by the MJR Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R and the Blue Sands Racing Ford Mustang IRC of Julian Familiaris, Franco di Matteo and Romano Sartori.
Wayne Roach lined up ninth in his Samlin Racing Lamborghini Gallardo GT3 Super Trofeo followed by Antonie Marx (Shelby Can-Am), Mo Mia (Porsche GT3 Cup), the G&H Transport Audi R8 GT4 of brothers Gianni and Ricky Giannoccaro and Ant Blunden, Roberto and David Franco (Graphix Supply World Volkswagen SupaPolo) and the Team Pesty Backdraft Roadster of Barend and Harm Pretorius.
Race:
As the lights turned green at 13h02, Jensen, who took the first stint, streaked into the lead while Naicker tried to slide his Audi up the inside of Letlaka at the first corner, to no avail. What followed was a high-speed train with Letlaka holding off Naicker and Aranagies over the next 20 minutes until the Proton safety car was called out to retrieve the G&H Audi that was stranded at Leeukop Corner with broken wheel studs.
Letlaka took advantage of the race break to make an early fuel stop to top up his Lamborghini’s tank to extend his stint, dropping to fourth in the process. Naicker caught Jensen after the Nova driver served a drive-through penalty for overtaking under the safety car and harried him for the lead until the Nova stopped around the one-hour mark for Adcock to take over.
On the hour, Jefferies climbed into the Huracan’s cockpit but did not fully tighten his seat belts before leaving the pits, which earned the Zimbabwean-born driver a drive-through penalty, costing the team 25 seconds.
After the two leaders pitted, Naicker took over the lead until his first pit stop after 70 minutes when the Stradale team’s challenge faded. As Liebenberg readied himself to set off, the car refused to fire up and the crew was forced to push-start the Audi back to life. This earned him a drive-through penalty, the first of three such penalties after the Audi’s starter motor failed and the recalcitrant Audi had to push away after each pit stop.
Out in front, Adcock, back in the lead, was under pressure from Jefferies as a brief rain shower soaked the circuit and Jefferies pitted for wet tyres, while Adcock gambled on staying out as he saw blue sky and assumed the rain would stop. It was a bold strategy that played into RBR’s hands with less traffic and safety car interruptions while the cooler weather allowed the Nova to operate in its peak performance window and stay in the fight for the win.
Adcock spun exiting Crowthorne Corner, while Jefferies was closing in on the lead at the rate of 20 seconds per lap until he passed the Nova with an hour and 51 minutes remaining.
Stuart White climbed into the leading Lamborghini for the final stint but suffered a left front puncture and then, with 52 minutes remaining, suffered a right-rear puncture, dropping to third position; the two unplanned stops cost the Into Africa team 70 seconds and no chance of fighting for the win.
Visser took the wheel of the Nova for the final stint and set about putting a chunk of daylight between himself and White, setting a blistering pace that saw him set a new Kyalami lap record of 1:40.10 on his second last lap to seal the team’s second win of the year; it was one of six lap records he broke during his stint.
The previous lap record was set by Jonathan Thomas, in the same Nova, at the 2024 Nine Hours of Kyalami.
Adcock was elated; “It’s one of those special rare days with pole position, a lap record and the win so we’re more than happy. It’s a great credit to the team. Rico Barlow Racing meticulously prepares the car which ran like a Swiss watch all day.”
“The heavy lifting was done by Charl who is definitely coming of age. Once again, we faced stiff competition from Into Africa. It was nip and tuck, but they had some misfortune with their punctures.”
Behind the Rico Barlow, Into Africa and Stradale teams, the father-and-son Lategan crew brought their SAC Commercial Parts Porsche home in fourth. Lategan Sr did an 80-minute opening stint, leaving Henk to drive for 160 minutes. The consistency of the WCT Engineering-run Porsche earned them the Index of Performance and Class B win in their first endurance race of the year after a trouble free-run.
Fifth overall and second in Class B was the repaired G&H Audi of the Giannoccaro brothers and Ant Blunden, some 29 laps behind the Lategan Porsche.
The Blue Sands Mustang came home in sixth overall and third in Class B after losing time in the pits to repair a broken rose joint and shock absorber shortly after di Matteo took over driving duties from Familiaris.
Class C honours went to the Korridas Racing Volkswagen Golf GTi turbo of Bruno Campos, Sandro Alves and M. Da Silva after battling through the final 90 minutes with the car stuck in third gear. Roberto and David Franco were running as high as fifth overall and comfortably leading Class C until they were forced to retire with two laps remaining due to a broken battery cable.
Team Pesty retired their Backdraft Roadster with 67 minutes left on the clock with a drivetrain issue while Marius Jackson retired his Porsche after two shock absorbers collapsed. An attempted repair was made but Jackson elected to retire the car on safety grounds.
1-Hour Dash
Charl Arangies stormed to victory in his Vaal Fluid Systems Porsche 911 GT3R who mixed it with the leading SA Endurance leaders in a fantastic fight.
“It’s been a fantastic weekend. We can’t complain. It was quite a hot race in front and great fun. I’m happy,” said the Vereeniging businessman.
Damian Hammond brought his new Mercedes-AMG GT3 home in second position, 20 seconds adrift of the flying Porsche. “It is a big learning curve. We have some improvements to make here and there, and we’ll come back stronger at the next round. I managed to keep up with Charl in the Porsche. Our only goal was to understand the car a bit better,” Hammond explained.
Andrew Horne brought his Xena Chemicals Ligier-Honda JS49 home in third position after starting from the pit lane. Horne missed qualifying after his car developed an ECU issue and was resigned to not racing until Franco di Matteo sourced a spare part from his own Ligier. The team worked frantically to get the car running and was rewarded with a solid podium.
Mo Mia raced to a strong fourth in his Porsche 992.2 GT3 Cup car and was followed home by Antonie Marx in his Shelby CanAm. Wayne Roach started the race late after the team discovered an oil leak just before the start and completed just nine laps.
The next round of the SA Endurance Championship Connect by Vodacom 4U is the Four Hours of Zwartkops on 10 and 11 October.
