It will be a Ferrari-Audi grand final that we will experience next week at 9h of Kyalami, the last round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge 2021, which as we know has been postponed since last December.
For the Prancing Horse, the trio formed by Côme Ledogar, Nicklas Nielsen and Alessandro Pier Guidi will have to defend the leadership in the drivers’ standings, driving the 488 # 51 of AF Corse-Francorchamps Motors, which also lines up the # 71 of their colleagues Miguel Molina, Alessio Rovera and Antonio Fuoco.
These will be the only two Maranello cars involved in the event, which suggests that it is mainly aiming for the aforementioned title, given that on the other hand Audi has a conspicuous advantage in the Constructors’ ranking and has elected three R8 LMS to take points (in any case, the best two cars placed at the checkered flag are considered).
As announced last week, the Four Rings have chosen to mix crews over the budget. Marcus Winkelhock, Patrick Niederhauser and Kelvin Van Der Linde will board the # 25 Saintéloc Racing car, while Christopher Haase, Charles Weerts and Dries Vanthoor will share the cockpit of the # 32 Team WRT.
Niederhauser / Winkelhock / Haase are only 2 lengths from Pier Guidi / Calado / Ledogar, therefore in Ingolstadt they try everything to have their PRO color-bearer able to hoist themselves to the top of the championship, calculating that the Top 10 will take points on the scale of 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1.
Among the manufacturers, Audi has 78 points against Ferrari’s 42, and will aim to take them not only with the two aforementioned vehicles, but also with the R8 # 33 that High Class Racing entrusts to Mark Patterson / Anders Fjordbach / Michael Markussen, included in Pro-Am Class.
To complete the talk of the PROs, there is also the Mercedes-AMG # 89 of the AKKA ASP for Raffaele Marciello / Timur Boguslavskiy / Jules Gounon, while the # 75 of SunEnergy1 Racing is of the Pro-Am Mikaël Grenier / Martin Konrad / Kenny Habul.
The only ones present in the Silver Cup are Nicolas Baert / Simon Gachet / Lucas Legeret with the Audi # 26 of Saintéloc, the same car chosen by MJR Motorsport for Mikaeel Pitamber plus two other competitors still to be decided, who will battle with the # 17 for the National GT3 Class.
In this category we also find the two Lamborghinis of Stradale Motorsport and Stradale Into Africa, entered with the # 23 for Xolile Letlaka / Tschops Sipuka / Phillip Kekana and the # 86 for Charl Arangies / Arnold Neveling / Michael Van Rooyen.
Scuderia Scribante also brings two Huracans marked # 45 and # 55, which with its chief drivers Aldo and Silvio Scribante has yet to define the names of the crewmates.
Finally the MJR will have an Audi R8 GT4 with the # 80 for Marius Jackson / Kishoor Pitamber / Mo Mia, closing a grid of 14 cars.
# 1 Into Africa Mining, Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo: Xolile Letlaka, Tschops Sipuka, Phillip Kekana
Photo by: SRO
The race program will open on Thursday 3 February, arriving at the race on Saturday. Here are the Italian timetables, considering that South Africa is one hour ahead of us.
Thursday 3rd February
9:10 – 11:10: Test 1
13:35 – 15:35: Test 2
17:50 – 19:20: Free Practice
Friday 4th February
9:35 – 11:20: Pre-qualifying
14:30 – 15:30: Qualifying (Q1-Q2-Q3)
17:00 – 17:25: Superpole (for the Top8)
Saturday 5th February
12:00 – 21:00: Race
#IGTC #Kyalami #protagonists #FerrariAudi #final
