The inaugural SAGT National Championship ended on a thrilling note in Cape Town with Michael Stephen and 2022 SAGT Champion Silvio Scribante claiming the final honours of the year in a pair of fiercely contested one-hour races which formed part of the Cape Motorsport Festival.
Adding spice to the line-up, Jordan Pepper joined the Scuderia Scribante line-up while Stuart White shared Xolile Letlaka’s new Into Africa Mining Aston Martin Vantage GT3.
Scuderia Scribante wrapped up the Team’s Championship with Marcel Angel confirmed as the ProAm Champion and Sun Moodley wrapping up the Am title. Stephen snatched third overall in the final championship standings
Qualifying:
Seven different manufacturers took to the 3.2km track for qualifying. Pepper qualified Aldo Scribante’s Scribante Concrete Lamborghini Huracan GT3 on pole with a storming time of 1:07:818, 0.2 seconds ahead of Stephen’s brand new Ultimate Outlaws Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo2.
Silvio Scribante (Cemza cement Lamborghini Huracan GT3) was 1.3 seconds behind in third, followed by the leading ProAM driver Andrew Culbert (Bigfoot Express Mercedes-AMG GT3) and teammate Sun Moodley’s similar Bigfoot Mercedes-AMG.
Stuart White overcame a few teething issues on the Aston Martin to take fifth on the grid while Mo Mia’s Toys-R-Us Porsche 911 GT3 snatched sixth on the grid.
Round 11:
Pepper stormed into an immediate lead with Stephen matching his every move over the first ten laps until the Audi’s rear end became loose, allowing Jordan to take command and open out a 34 second lead by the time he handed the car over to Aldo with 15 minutes remaining on the clock.
The elder Scribante brother settled in but soon came under pressure from Stephen who relentlessly set times in the 1:09 bracket with Aldo running three to four seconds a lap slower. With two laps remaining, Stephen swept past Scribante into the lead, crossing the line 5.7 seconds ahead of the black and yellow Scribante Concrete car, to snatch third in the final overall standings from the absent Marcel Angel.
Behind the scrap for the lead, Silvio Scribante brought his yellow machine home in third place in spite of a misfiring engine and hampered with 75kgs of success ballast from his previous hometown victory in October. White and Letlaka started their life with the British marquee in fourth, finding the front-engined machine demanded a whole new driving style. The two Bigfoot Mercedes of Culbert and Moodley ended fifth and sixth respectively.
Round 12:
The grid is formed by a driver’s fastest lap from the preceding race so Aldo found himself on pole from Stephen (carrying an extra 75kg of success ballast), Silvio/Jordan Pepper, White, Culbert and Moodley.
Stephen sprinted away when the light turned green, leaving Aldo and Silvio Scribante to scrap amongst themselves in his dust, opening a healthy 30-second lead by the time pitstop strategies started to play out. Silvio pitted on lap 27, handing his car over to Pepper. Stephen pitted at the same time and with a slow pitstop, the Audi driver lost the lead to the Cemza Lamborghini and what followed was a game of cat-and-mouse as the leading drivers duelled for the win.
As Stephen’s Audi burned through its fuel load and got considerably lighter, he started to reel in the fleeing Pepper but it was too little too late and the 2021 GT World Challenge America champion duly took the flag by 2.7 seconds and gave Silvio his fifth victory of the year. Andrew Culbert’s Bigfoot Mercedes claimed the final step of the podium only for the ecstatic driver to be disqualified for having an underweight car.
Letlaka/White inherited their maiden podium having crossed the line in fourth place on the road, followed by Aldo Scribante who recovered from last place after he threw his car into the scenery and was hounded by Moodley all the way home.
Ends
