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| Stephen Simpson |
AT Long Beach in California last weekend, South African Stephen
Simpson and his Canadian teammate Misha Goikhberg drove their Chevrolet to a
dominant victory on the Long Beach Prototype Challenge Grand Prix on Saturday
afternoon.
The win consolidates the duo’s lead at the top of the IMSA
Prototype Challenge Championship following their Daytona 24-hour victory and a
fighting fourth in the Sebring 12-hour.
Simpson was delighted by the result. “We had a great day at Long
Beach!” the Indianapolis-based Capetonian admitted. “We started from pole
position and led every lap and that makes this win all that much sweeter.”
He thanked the JDC Miller Motorsports team for an outstanding job
that saw their Chev win two out of the first three races of the year.
Simpson, Goikhberg and the JDC Miller squad now head to the second
of IMSA Prototype Challenge’s two back-to-back Californian rounds at the twisty,
challenging and quick Laguna Seca for the fourth round of the championship on
April 30.
In Spain tomorrow
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| A cyte, Brad Binder when he raced for Mahindra. |
Another regular on the podium, Potchefstroom’s
Brad Binder, heads to Spain tomorrow for the weekend’s Moto GP. Two weeks ago,
Binder earned his ninth podium in his Moto GP career in America.
Binder races in the Moto3 category and bike pundits warn he can
expect an even harder race from Philipp Oetll as the Spaniard will be riding in
front of his home crowd at Jerez.
In a wet England
In the UK, Durban boykie Raoul Hyman endured a
challenging wildcard outing in British Formula 3 championship over the
weekend.
As he said: “That was a difficult weekend.”
Hyman will be back in the higher profile European Formula 3 at the
Hungoraring near Budapest in Hungary on Saturday.
In even wetter Germany
Three South Africans had the best and the worst
of the Oschersleben track in Germany over the weekend.
Jordan Pepper endured an encouraging first outing sharing his
Bentley with series Gentleman’s champion Andreas Weishaupt in the German ADAC GT
Masters series opener at Oschersleben on Sunday. The duo came away in the Trophy
class championship lead after netting a second and a third in class in the two
races.
After taking the car over in 29th in the first race and making six
overtaking manoeuvres and taking his car up to 16th while fellow racers suffered
a few “drive throughs” and crashes around him on Saturday, he was ready for a
full attack on Sunday’s second race. He started ninth and passed for 8th early
on before coming up on Edward Sandström, whose slam closed a gap that Pepper
took, bouncing the Bentley off into the armco to bring out the safety car.
Despite that skirmish, Jordan was delighted with his performance.
“That was a hard race,” Pepper explained. “I had a good start and moved up to
8th early and then 7th. Then I just put my head down and chased to the stop to
hand Andreas [Weishaupt] the car from sixth position.”
The ADAC GT Masters now heads for Sachsenring for round two in two
weeks over the weekend of May 1.
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| Kelvin van der Linde |
Fellow Capetonian Jonathan Aberdein and South African GT race star
Kelvin van der Linde also found the going tough at Oschersleben.
Aberdein’s inexperience showed on the wet track.
“This was out first weekend in ADAC Formula 4 and while we did
struggle along the way, we learned so much,” Jonathan concluded. “The last race
was much better but we still have a lot of work to do and I need to better
understand what we need to do with the car as the conditions change.
“Still, it was a positive weekend and I’m looking forward to moving
forward at Sachsenring in two weeks’ time.”
Van der Linde started his third year of racing in the German ADAC
GT Masters series at Oschersleben. 2014 champion Kelvin is driving for new Audi
team Car Collection Racing with Spanish rookie Isaac Tutumlu-Lopez this year and
despite a challenging weekend, the duo drove the fastest car on track in the
last stint and we they look forward to be in Sachsenring in two week’s time.
“That’s my happy hunting ground and I’m determined to keep my good
record there intact,” said Van der Linde.
This weekend in Italy
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| David Perel |
The Wordpress wizard who is living his dream to
race, Dave Perel will again be dicing against 58 of the world’s finest supercars
in the Blancpain GT Endurance Championship at Monza in Italy on Saturday and
Sunday.
Tehcnical issues last year saw him miss a double win at this
legendary Italian track, and he said he cannot wait to make up for it against a
field of cars from Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini, Bentley, Aston Martin, BMW,
Audi, Mercedes-Benz, racing with his new co-drivers, American Stephen Earle and
Belgian Bernard Delhez.
First published in Witness Wheels.
