Kirchhoefer, R-Motorsport Quickest in Second Test Session

Photo: Dirk Bogaerts/SRO

A late flier from Marvin Kirchhoefer put R-Motorsport to the top of the timesheets in the second and final paid test session ahead of this weekend’s Kyalami 9 Hour.

The Swiss driver posted a time of 1:42.480 within the final five minutes of the session to put the No. 62 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 quickest. He shares the car with Ricky Collard and Hugo de Sadeleer.

KCMG had led almost all of the session up to that point, after an early time set by Edoardo Liberati in the No. 18 Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3, just 0.007 seconds slower than Kirchhoefer’s eventual offering.

Liberati’s lap time came after Joao Paulo de Oliveira, driving the other KCMG Nissan, had led the session up to that point, improving his pace three times. His No. 35 Nissan placed fourth at the end of the session.

The JAS Motorsport Honda NSX GT3 Evo separated the two KCMG entries, running third.

Mercedes-AMG Team SPS Automotive Performance’s car was fifth quickest, while the factory-backed GruppeM Mercedes finished seventh despite a heavy crash for Maro Engel that has put the team in a race against time to fix the car.

Engel’s crash at Turn 7 brought out the session’s first red flag while a later incident at Turn 10 for Dawie Joubert in local team Stradale Motorsport’s Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo resulted in the second red flag.

The weekend’s official on-track action gets underway at 6 p.m. local time (11 a.m. EST / 4 p.m. GMT) for 90 minutes of Night Practice.

The session won’t be entirely in the dark, with sunset at 6:38 p.m.

RESULTS: Test Session 2

Jake Kilshaw

Jake Kilshaw is a UK-based journalist. He is a graduate of Politics and International Relations.