9H Kyalami: Cheers for the three Swiss 🎥
TWO WINS AND A PODIUM The postponed final race of the Intercontinentel GT Challenge in South Africa brought Raffaele Marciello, Patric Niederhauser and Lucas Légeret a lot of success. The only thing that didn't work out was a title win for "Nidi".
The highlights of the 9 Hours of Kyalami. Although only twelve teams competed, it offered plenty of variety.
After the pandemic forced a postponement of the IGTC final race from December 4, 2021 to February 5, 2022, it went off absolutely smoothly on Saturday at the Kyalami Circuit near Johannesburg in thoroughly ideal external conditions. However, the starting field consisted of only a dozen teams.
Right from the start, AKKA ASP's Mercedes-AMG GT3 with Raffaele Marciello from Ticino, Frenchman Jules Gounon and Bulgarian Timur Boguslavskiy dominated the action (center and right gallery). Only thanks to a different strategy during the pit stops did the opponents from AF Corse Ferrari and Audi Sport briefly manage leading laps.
Runner-up title for Niederhauser
Local hero Kelvin van der Linde, Patric Niederhauser from Bern and Germany's Markus Winkelhock (left gallery) clinched third place in the R8 LMS from Audi Sport Team Saintéloc. In the battle for the IGTC drivers' title, "Nidi" and "Winki" were beaten by only one position and five points respectively.
The crown went to the Ferrari driver duo Côme Ledogar and Alessandro Pier Guidi, who finished second in the 9-hour race, and who received support from the Portuguese Miguel Molina at Kyalami.
With a second place of its best factory-supported customer team at the Spa 24 Hours in the summer of 2021, victory at the Indianapolis 8Hours in October (with Niederhauser, Haase and Winkelhock) and the final podium in South Africa Audi secured the win of the manufacturers' championship in the only worldwide GT3 series.
Patric Niederhauser: "We would have liked to fight for victory and the title, but we had blunt weapons against the Mercedes and the Ferraris with the Audi from the classification. I've never experienced it like this before despite a flawless race. From that point of view, we have to be satisfied with the result because we were the best Audi team in the end and at least finished on the podium. The Indy win and the runner-up title now remain a highlight of my career."
Solo class win for Lucas Légeret
The best driver pairing outside the professional category, which was only represented by five teams from Ferrari and Audi in South Africa, were Nicolas Baert, Simon Gachet and Lucas Légeret.
The Belgian-French-Swiss Audi junior team of Saintéloc Racing finished fifth, ten laps behind the top 4 who finished within 48 seconds of each other. Baert and Légeret thus won the Silver Cup classification without any competition after having missed this success by only 24 seconds at the Indianapolis 8H earlier.
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