South Africa’s most exciting racing series returned to the Zwartkops Raceway for the second time in 2017 where championship points leader Devin Robertson stamped his authority on the series with a dominant display of driving skills. “It was a perfect weekend for us,” said Robertson. We set the fastest time in qualifying on Friday, then followed that up with the fastest time in Super Pole, and took three out of three victories on race day. We couldn’t have asked for anything better.”
Robertson may have made it look easy, but Engen Volkswagen Cup Racing lived up to its expectations and reputation at Round 6 of the series. His qualifying time of 1 minute and 13.168 seconds was only 0.061 of a second faster than the time set by Clinton Bezuidenhout with Juan Gerber just a few hundredths of second further back in third. The top six that went into the Super Pole shootout consisted of the usual suspects and included names like Shaun La Réservée, Darren Oates and Jeffrey Kruger with Tasmin Pepper and Jonathan Mogotsi just missing out.
When the lights turned green for the start of race 1, Robertson quickly established himself as the one to catch with a string of nearly 20 Volkswagen Polos in hot pursuit. Despite the best efforts of Bezuidenhout, Gerber and Kruger, the youngster held on to claim a narrow victory of just over a second.
Race two provided much of the same with Robertson again having to fend off a determined young Clinton Bezuidenhout. This time it was Jeffrey Kruger who managed to slip past Juan Gerber to claim third with lady-driver Tasmin Pepper recovering well from earlier setbacks to cross the line in fifth. With one more race to run, Robertson had the opportunity to record a clean sweep and he grabbed it with both hands as he took the chequered flag for the third time in as many races. This time round, it was a narrow victory of less than a second over Juan Gerber with Jeffrey Kruger completing the podium.
In Engen Volkswagen Cup, the times for all the races are added up in order to determine overall positions. When the calculations were made, it came as no surprise that Robertson topped the timesheets ahead of Juan Gerber and Jeffrey Kruger. Bezuidenhout lost some time in the final race that relegated him down to fourth overall, ahead of Darren Oates.
Volkswagen Motorsport’s Jonathan Mogotsi who won at the last round in Port Elizabeth had a very steady weekend with three top ten finishes in all three races. This sort of consistency allowed him to claim the overall sixth position on the day. It was in fact a great day for Volkswagen’s young guns with Kuda Vazhure finishing a very credible seventh, just one single second behind his teammate Mogotsi.
“Overall, it was great day’s racing here at Zwartkops,” commented Mr. Mike Rowe, head of Volkswagen Motorsport. “The crowds were entertained with all our Polo drivers putting up a great show. In addition to that young Devin Robertson did his championship aspirations a huge favour with a good points haul that will make him the favourite for the title, and we as Volkswagen are still very pleased with the progress made by our own two drivers over the course of the season. We can’t wait to see what happens on the next two events,” he concluded.
The next and penultimate round of the 2017 Engen Volkswagen Cup will take place at Cape Town’s Killarney circuit on 8 and 9 September.