Toyota Gazoo GR Cup Race Series makes a splash

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Round one of the Toyota Gazoo Racing Cup at Zwartkops Raceway couldn’t have gone any better for team Association of South African Motoring Media. 

The build-up to the race weekend was packed with introductions to the Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa team, Fast Developments, who prepped the GR86s we’d be racing, and my fellow motoring scribes with whom I’d hopefully not be swapping paint work in the 2023 season. 

The Citizen’s Mark Jones and BMW Car Club racer returns as a veteran of the 2022 season, Denis Droppa of TimesLive, Brendon Staniforth from Maroela Media, AutoTrader’s Chad Lückoff with a background in drifting, and freelance writer Reuben van Niekerk, representing Jumping Kids initiative, were selected to battle for the title of Fastest Motoring Journalist of 2023. 

The new Toyota GR86 Automatic was selected to be campaigned by the motoring media while last year’s GR Yaris race cars, which Mail & Guardian motoring editor Lerato Matebese raced, were handed down to Toyota Karting Academy’s young graduates. Our GR 86 cars have been fitted with Dunlop Direzza 03G semi-slicks, Powerbrake four-piston big brakes up front, straight-through exhaust and a partially stripped interior where a roll cage has been bolted in. Both standard seats have been swapped for snug OMP racing bucket seats. 

Pre-season testing and familiarisation with the car took place on the Monday before the race weekend, where my aim for the day was to overlay my simulated racing experience with the real world.

My lap times in Friday’s official race practice sessions suggested that the connection clicked and I found myself with the second quickest times behind Thomas Falkiner, who filled in for Droppa in this race. The heavens opened and turned the circuit into a skating rink, but the GR86’s relatively light weight, low centre of gravity and rear-wheel drive balance made for a communicative, intuitive and predictable racing platform. 

Ominous clouds hovered over Zwartkops on Saturday but they didn’t unload any rain. I’d bettered my best practice lap time by a seven tenths to 01:14.6, only 0.4 seconds off of the previous day’s purple lap. 

I made one more attempt to improve on that time but ended up overdriving the car. The timing sheets showed Falkiner had shaved another three tenths off of his practice time with a pole lap of 01:13.9, placing me 0.7 seconds behind and second on the starting grid. 

An agonising wait for the first race to begin only worsened the nerves. 

Falkiner began his charge into the distance. Staniforth filled my mirrors for a good three laps and forced an error that saw me brake too late and touch the gravel at the fifth turn. I closed the door into the turn six right-hander before Staniforth got any ideas. He made an error heading into the final corner. This eased off the pressure and I sailed on to a second place finish. 

The second race met me with a much clearer head and a lot more confidence. I spent most of the lap watching a battle raging between Jones and Staniforth in my mirrors. I crossed the finish line, solidifying my double second place podium finish. 

It was a fantastic outing. I will be flying high the Association of South African Motoring Media’s flag in round two of the GR Cup at Killarney Raceway in Cape Town this weekend.