Ferodo Racing Team’s Lee Thompson remained in charge of theover-27 Masters’ category of the Engen Volkswagen Cup with back-to-backvictories in round six at the East London grand prix circuit on Saturday. The 31-year-old from Garsfontein near Pretoria has now won nine of the 12 racesso far this season in his Ferodo-backed VW Polo.
Ferodo team-mate Kelvin van der Linde finished fourth overall for the day inhis Polo in the main Engen Volkswagen Cup competition for drivers aged under28. The 15-year-old rookie from Dainfern near Johannesburg was seventh inrace one and fourth in race two.
The third member of the team, 20-year-old Gennaro Bonafede, finished secondoverall for the day in class T of the Bridgestone Production CarChampionship. Driving a Ferodo VW Golf GTi, the Dainfern residentfinished fifth and third in the first two six-lap sprint races, which were runback-to-back, and followed this up with third and second in the back-to-backthird and fourth sprint races. All four races were won by former championGary Formato (Ford Focus).
Thompson got his race day off to the perfect start with a comfortable poleposition in qualifying, nine tenths of a second quicker than the next Master,Miguel Pasqualli. After picking third place on the grid in the ‘luckydraw’ among the top six qualifiers, he had already made up the deficit by theend of lap one and led the 22-car field.
Van der Linde, third quickest in qualifying and second among theunder-28-year-olds behind championship leader Devin Robertson, unluckily drewfifth place on the grid and was fifth at the end of the first lap. He andKosie Weyers made contact under braking in the final corner, causing franticavoiding action by a number of drivers and allowing Thompson to make hisgetaway.
While Thompson disappeared into the distance, finishing a comfortable 5,6 secondsahead of closest rival Pasqualli in fifth place overall at the end of the eightlaps, Van der Linde dropped back to sixth after his incident and then workedhis way back to fifth overall at the chequered flag and fourth in his agegroup.
The teenager impressed on his first VW Cup visit to the high-speed former grandprix circuit and traded places with Pasqualli and Robertson in an excitingbattle for fourth place overall. Robertson finally took the place aheadof Van der Linde after his young rival had passed him on the run to the finalcorner, only to be eased off on to the grass as Robertson resisted his efforts.
However, he received a 30-second penalty for his part in the incident withWeyers, who was unable to continue, which dropped him to seventh.
Thompson, starting from fifth on the grid in race two, was second behind raceleader Weyers and first Master by the end of lap two. Van der Linde, whostarted third, was fifth behind Weyers, Kyle Barnes and Robertson after twolaps.
Thompson went on to take a second Masters’ win for the day and second overall,four tenths of a second behind race winner Weyers.
In a determined drive, Van der Linde dispensed with third-placed Barnes on lapfour with a bold move down the inside as the two braked for the final corner onlap four. He then closed on Robertson and worried the championship leaderthroughout the second half of the race, sitting on his bumper through the Esseson the penultimate lap. He crossed the line just three tenths of a secondin arrears and picked up a valuable 10 championship points for third place inhis age group and fourth overall.
Bonafede was frustrated by a mysterious engine management problem that plaguedhim throughout Friday’s practice, Saturday qualifying (he could only managesixth fastest time) and race one. His pit crew managed to make asuccessful quick adjustment on the grid between the first two races and he wasalmost back on the pace for the rest of the day.
He had a great dice for second place with the Ford Focus of Shaun Duminy in thefinal race. The two touched as Bonafede took the inside line coming outof the Hairpin on lap four, with Duminy crashing out while the Ferodo driverwent on to take the runner-up spot behind Formato.
STORY COURTESY OF PETER BURROUGHES COMMUNICATIONS
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