Niederhauser: "It was inhumane" 🎥

Class instead of mass: Only a small field started the last big GT3 race of the year in South Africa, which was dramatic towards the end, as the highlights show (Photo: SRO, DPPI).

Although only twelve cars were on the grid at the fourth and final round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge in South Africa. But the fastest five or six teams delivered a thrilling sprint race that lasted eight hours.

Honda seemingly on course for victory
When torrential rain set in at the end of what had been a hot and humid summer day, the race had to be neutralized in the final hour. Up to this point, the Honda NSX GT3, which had been leading from the start, seemed to be heading for its first big win.

The factory car fielded by Team Honda Racing from Italy came under real pressure from the seventh hour onwards when the brilliantly equipped Patric Niederhauser with the R8 LMS from Audi Sport Team Car Collection closed to within 1.5 seconds of it. But neither team was to be rewarded for its performance.

Misjudgment
When the expected precipitation started about one and a half hours before the chequered flag as darkness fell, there was a first short safety car phase which the teams used for pit stops.

While all the chasers also used the driver and tire change to rain tires for refueling, the Honda team opted for a shorter stop without refueling - there would still have been time for that in the last hour if the race had gone normally.

Bad luck for Niederhauser's team partner
Immediately after the release, Mattia Drudi, who had replaced Niederhauser, spun due to aquaplaning. The Italian was able to continue but dropped from second to fifth place due to the time loss.

NIE aka Patric Niederhauser and his team partners Mattia Drudi and Christopher Haase were on course for the podium for a long time (Photo: Kräling, Audi).

For the race organizers, however, this incident, which was harmless in itself, was reason enough to neutralize the race once and for all. Bad luck for Honda, which had to refuel briefly during the caution period and was thus only able to take a thankless fourth place back to Europe instead of the victory it deserved.

"It was inhumane"
Immediately after the race, the only Swiss competitor in Kyalami contacted AutoSprintCH by phone and described his experiences.

Patric Niederhauser: "It was inhumane out there. Even when I handed the car over to Mattia during the first yellow phase, it was land under water. That's why the restart was irresponsible. Mattia was devastated. I've rarely experienced rain like that."

Niederhauser once again delivered a class performance in the final race of his first season as an Audi GT factory driver. This went unrewarded.

It goes without saying that the Audi GT works driver from Bern was disappointed.

Patric Niederhauser: "Yes, a podium would have been nice. I don't think I could have overtaken the Honda, but still victory or second place was within reach. This would have been a nice way to end the season."

After an hour of driving behind the safety car, the Walkenhorst BMW crossed the finish line as the winner.

Victory and drivers' title to BMW
Victory went to the BMW M6 GT3 of Walkenhorst Motorsport. It was the first car from the lead group to pit in fourth place and switched to rain tires during the penultimate short yellow period.

Due to Drudi's spin and the competitors' later pit stops, Nick Catsburg moved into the lead around half an hour before the end and brought home the win under full-course yellow conditions. Catsburg and Augusto Farfus, who had already won the 8 Hours of Indianapolis (USA), thus secured the IGTC drivers' title.

The manufacturers' championship goes to Porsche thanks to the third-placed customer team GPX Racing and seventh place for the second 911 team Dinamic Motorsport, both manned by factory drivers.

The conditions were apocalyptic even before neutralization. Porsche at least retained the title in the manufacturers' championship.

Classification 9 Hours Kyalami 2020

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