The arrival of the Super 2000 Ford Fiesta in the South African Rally Championship, pioneered by the Basil Read/bizhub Ford Rally Team last season, has seen an influx of M-Sport-built machines take to the stages in SA’s most thrilling form of motorsport.
The Ford Fiesta has taken overall honours in three of the last four national championship rallies held, while in the most recent round, the HMC Rally last month, Ford claimed a 1-2 finish and dominated the timesheets. With a 5th place finish as well, Ford claimed the Manufacturer’s Award for the first time in over a decade and a half, a feather in the caps of the privateer-run Ford teams.
The privateer Basil Read/bizhub Ford of Charl Wilken/Greg Godrich, the G-Fuel Ford of Conrad Rautenbach/Nicolas Klinger and the Team Sasol Fords of Mark Cronje/Robin Houghton and Jon Williams/Cobus Vrey have turned rallying on its head, according to Charl Wilken.
Wilken goes into the season mid-point 4th in the driver rankings, while co-driver Godrich is 2nd in his title race.
“The Ford Fiesta made everyone sit up and take notice. Suddenly Toyota and Volkswagen had to accelerate the development of their cars to stay competitive which has seen an incredible leap in performance and competitiveness across the board. The Peugeots are new but I expect to see them getting closer and closer to our pace. It’s great that privateer teams can take on the big factory outfits on an even basis”.
Wilken continued: “On every round, the lead has changed multiple times; last time out, we lost out on a win by only 2.5 seconds, the closest finish of the year”.
Wilken and Godrich are the defending Gauteng Rally victors and hope to emulate their maiden win at the close of the 2010 season. “Day 1 will be a bit of a gamble as it has never been used for rallying before. Tactics will have to be carefully thought out if you want to adjust your road position – you really can’t afford to give away time any more”, Wilken suggested.
“We’ve done a few rallies in the Bapsfontein area and will go as quickly as we can. The stages should be quite smooth with a few rough patches; the roads are medium to fast. I’m really looking forward to it”, he ended.
“I understand that the mielies have not been harvested yet, so conditions should be very similar to the Bronkhorstspruit stages last month”, said Godrich. “We have no option but to go absolutely flat out; this rally is one we know well and is a good opportunity to take maximum points.
The 12-stage rally starts on Friday at midday from Carnival Toyota in Brakpan, taking in 5 stages – including a short tarmac stage at night. The cars leave at 08h00 on Saturday for Bapsfontein and six stages with a finale at the Rallystar SuperSpecial.
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