Michael Stephen and his Engen Xtreme Audi A3 are the 2016 Sasol GTC Africa champions – the first champion to be crowned in this new national motorsport series. Stephen set the pace from the outset of the season, winning the first six races, claiming the first five pole position starts and setting the first four fastest laptimes recorded in the championship.
In control from the beginning, Stephen led the field through the opening stages and quickly set himself up as the likely champion for the season. With a full season that totalled eight race wins out of 14 races, three podium finishes, eight fastest laps and ten pole positions Stephen was clearly in command from start to finish.
“Overall the championship was very good for the team,” says Stephen. “This weekend perhaps luck was not on our side, but we still showed we definitely have the pace – and we have the GTC title, which is the bigger picture for the season.”
“Up until the second-last round I had finished every race in either first or second. That is what made the difference in the end, so when we had misfortune there was enough in the bank that we still had the advantage.”
Both Michael Stephen and his teammate Simon Moss were the quickest cars on track in qualifying in East London. The pair put their Engen Xtreme Audi A3s in the first two grid positions by more than a half-second. This set them up for a good opening race.
Here Moss opened an early lead that saw him ahead of the field by a comfortable margin, seconds ahead of his rivals. On the final lap, with less than a handful of corners to go he was forced to pull off and retire, robbed of his first race victory for the season.
“Everything was smooth through qualifying and that first race,” says Moss. “I pushed hard for a few laps in race one to open a gap on the rest of the field but then I felt something was wrong, so I backed off because I had such a big margin on the others and I just had to cross the line. I got close, but not close enough and had to park it.”
Forced to retire in the first race, Moss then also had to concede race two and his chance to take third place overall for the year – which was well within his grasp. A race-winning performance in East London would have secured that position for him.
For the new GTC champion, the race weekend started off on a bad note when he had engine trouble in the first practice session – which saw his team working hard to get the motor swapped out, but with the side-effect that he got very few practice laps. With everything sorted for qualifying on Saturday morning, Stephen was on his usual pace – at the front of the field and posting the fastest times, resulting in a double-pole starting position.
Race one saw Moss take the lead, with Stephen controlling second spot. Stephen’s engine developed a problem on the warm-up lap, leaving him down on power in that first race. Avoiding contact with one of his rivals, Stephen spun out but quickly recovered to finish fifth. From his pole position start in race two Stephen set the fastest lap in the opening stages, setting up a comfortable lead before a technical gremlin caused his car to cut out down the main straight which allowed his rivals to find a way past. He resolutely kept going, lap after lap, to ensure points and to claim the chequered flag and the championship.
With the East London event marking the end of the 2016 season and a break of a few months before the 2017 season, the Engen Xtreme Team will not be closing the workshop doors. Preparation work for the new year will start almost immediately in order to purse another national championship title.
Alan Straton
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