Round 1 of the Canvas Intelligence MSA Porsche Cup was full of thrills, spills, drama, and glory as South Africa’s curtain-raiser series took to the historic track of Silverstone.
The 2.639 km track tested the driver’s technical ability to focus on tire management and keeping a stable pace to go for the outright win but with strict track limits and the abrasive track surface made the Porsche 992 cup car a challenge to push hard after seven laps of this historic circuit.
With all that said 23 drivers lined the grid and even some of the MSA GTE drivers jumped in to warm up and test their skills in the car. As qualifying started driver raced out of the pits looking to try to get some clean air and go for pole position, but it was Gerald Fourie who snatched pole place with a blazing 2.03.5 lap time but closely followed by Scott Montanari, Andre Steenkamp in third, Mike Verrier had to push hard to get a fourth place on the grid and Attie Nagel ending in fifth place.
All the drivers started getting butterflies as they lined up on the grid waiting for the lights to go off, each bringing the revs up getting ready for the perfect launch down into turn one. The tension was high than what seemed like an eternity the lights went off, Scott Montanari had a fantastic start getting the jump on the grid and went to quick work holding the inside line down into turn1.
As the grid completed lap one disaster struck for Andre Steenkamp who was in third place lost the rear of the car, shooting hard right into the pit wall and sustaining some suspension damage which started dropping him down the field. As the race went on more and more drivers started to feel the might as Silverstone as cars started picking up some damage from the curbs and grazing the walls.
Yaz Samaai, Brent Thompson, and Daelen Vice, who all started out of the top ten managed to start battling for a seventh, eighth, and ninth place were in a back force battle that was pushing the drivers to pull every rabbit out of the hat to get one up on each other as they were only a hundredth of a second split between them and even side by side action in the tightest of corners. This was giving the crowd a great show and had everyone on the edge of their seats for quite some time.
As the race came down to the final lap the drivers started to feel not only the tire wear but also having a lead foot does not help in a fixed fuel tank limit and one driver that found that out was Gerald Fourie who had to try coast his car to see if he could get it back to the pits but also dropped down from second place to way back down the field as his car decided it could not run on fumes anymore.
Scott Montanari finally breathing a sigh of relief took the chequered flag thirteen seconds ahead of Attie Nagel in second and Raynere Joubert in third.
With all said and done for round one of The Canvas Intelligence MSA Porsche cup done and dusted drivers went back to the pits and now start the hard work practicing for Imola on the second of March.
We would like to thank everyone for the support and our sponsors, Canvas Intelligence, A.S.A.P spares, and Express Toilet Hire. Till next we bid you all adieu.
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