Success for Volkswagen Sasolracing Polo S2000s at Toyota Cape Dealer Rally
With two Polo S2000s taking podium places at the 2015 Toyota Cape Dealer Rally on 18-19 September, the Volkswagen Sasolracing team celebrated at the event in the Western Cape. The crews of Gugu Zulu and Hilton Auffray, and Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries finished second and third respectively. In addition, Volkswagen Sasolracing was also handed the Manufacturer’s Award.
‘Best finish to date’
Zulu was understanably pleased with his and Auffray’s result: ‘Second place on the podium is my best finish to date,’ he said. ‘The longer, sweeping stages out here in the Western Cape make for a very tough and long event and we had to push – but not too hard. Rallying is a fine line between absolute pace and caution to get to the finish.’
Fekken and Arries meanwhile scored a second consecutive podium appearance on the tracks around Cape Town & Malmesbury. ‘This is a very good result for the team,’ remarked Fekken. ‘We had a puncture which cost us time, but we had a really good event overall. We pushed right up until the end, ending with a clean rally and another podium.’
Sadly, the Polo S2000 of Henk Lategan and Barry White developed an issue on the final section of stage 13 and ended in retirement for the third Volkswagen Sasolracing crew. The pair came home fourth, but had put in the best performance of the weekend. The first stage of day two saw the duo third-quickest, followed by second quickest times for the following four stages. Lategan and White actually produced the fastest times for stages 10, 11 and 12.‘A fantastic result’
Mike Rowe, Head of Volkswagen Motorsport South Africa, was pleased with the overall result of his team but disappointed with the retirement of Lategan and White: ‘It’s a fantastic result. The Volkswagen Sasolracing team did well and were there at the finish when it mattered, crossing the line for second and third.
‘The stars of the rally were Henk Lategan and Barry White who didn’t put a foot wrong the whole event. Henk and Barry really should have won today: they had great pace and won rally stages, but aren’t here at the finish through no fault of their own.’
The eighth and final round of the South African National Rally Championship is the Polokwane Rally which takes place on 16-17 October around Limpopo.
Recent comments