The Mercedes of the AKKA ASP team will start in Pole Position for the 9h of Kyalami, where Qualifying and SuperPole have been canceled due to a storm that hit the South African track in the afternoon.
Therefore, the starting grid of the last round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge 2021 – postponed to this weekend due to the wave of Covid-Omicron – will be based on the results obtained in the Pre-Qualifying that were staged in the morning.
Jules Gounon set the record in 1’42 “465 in the AMG # 89 shared with Marciello / Boguslavskiy, trimming a good gap to the AF Corse-Francorchamps Motors Ferrari 488s driven by Nielsen/ Rovera / Fuoco (# 71) and Pier Guidi / Ledogar /Molina (# 51).
For the ‘Reds’ of Maranello this is already good news, given that their direct rivals for the Drivers ‘and Constructors’ titles are further behind in the standings.
# 71 AF Corse – Francorchamps Motors Ferrari 488 GT3: Nicklas Nielsen, Alessio Rovera, Antonio Fuoco
Photo by: SRO
In fact, the # 75 Mercedes of SunEnergy1 Racing will start in fourth place (Grenier/ Konrad / Habul), the best in the Pro-Am Class, ahead of the Audi R8 LMS of the Saintéloc Teams (# 25 Niederhauser / Winkelhock /Van Der Linde) and WRT (# 32 Weerts / Drudi /Haase). At the last moment, Mattia Drudi got into the latter car in place of the unavailable Dries Vanthoor, who remained in the hotel due to physical illness.
Recall that Niederhauser / Winkelhock and Haase have to recover 2 points in the championship standings from Pier Guidi / Ledogar and Nielsen, with Audi Sport having to defend a +36 on Ferrari.
The seventh time trial instead Legeret / Baert /Gachet with the private Audi # 26 of Saintéloc Racing, the only one entered in the Silver Cup, while with the eighth time the # 33 of the High Class Racing (Patterson /Vermeulen/ Markussen) is second in Pro-Am.
In the Top10 we also find the Lamborghini Huracan # 86 of Stradale Motorsport (Arangies /Neveling/ Van Rooyen) and the Audi # 17 of MJR Motorsport, both registered in the National categories.
# 25 Audi Sport Team Sainteloc Audi R8 LMS GT3: Markus Winkelhock, Kelvin van der Linde, Patric Niederhauser
Photo by: Audi Communications Motorsport
Eleventh place instead for the Audi GT4 of the last team mentioned above, while the grid is closed by the Lamborghini # 23 of the local idols Letlaka /Sipuka/ Kekana (Stradale Into Africa), with very high times because Tschops Sipuka had ended up on the wall at turn 6, also causing the interruption with a red flag.
In the afternoon an attempt was made to start with the first of the three Qualifying sessions, but it was immediately evident that it was impossible to continue due to the very poor visibility and the amount of water on the track, which also caught Ledogar in error and spun.
The stewards thus canceled the session, drawing up the exit list of the cars (inverted Top8 of the Pre-Qualifying) for the two laps to be carried out in the hunt for the SuperPole, but even here the conditions have not improved, so it was decided to form the grid as explained above.
The departure of the 9h of Kyalami is scheduled for 12; 00 Italian on Saturday.
INTERCONTINENTAL GT CHALLENGE – 9h di Kyalami: Pre-Qualifying Ranking
#IGTC #Flood #Kyalami #MercedesAKKA #Pole