Kyalami Thursday Notebook

Photo: Audi

***The No. 999 GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo missed the first half of Thursday’s opening test session as it completed the rebuild of its car, which last contested the Gulf 12 Hours in December. A Mercedes-AMG spokesperson told Sportscar365 that the team began an engine rebuild on Sunday after unloading. The team missed scrutineering on Wednesday due to “parts missing” according to a stewards’ bulletin.

***SunEnergy1 by SPS has been off to a fast start with not only Jules Gounon topping the time sheets in Thursday’s two test sessions but also Kenny Habul impressing at the wheel of his No. 75 Mercedes. The Bronze-rated driver recorded a best time of 1:43.232 in the second session, which was only six-tenths off Gounon’s benchmark lap.

***The 13-car entry for the Kyalami 9 Hour is the same number of cars that were entered at the event last year, which served as the rescheduled 2021 IGTC season finale. Ironically, it also included eight international entries, which SRO Motorsports Group founder and CEO Stephane Ratel told Sportscar365 was the minimum in order for this year’s event to go ahead.

***Full season teams have had to split its equipment between the Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour and Kyalami, due to the short three-week period between races. The pair of Team WRT BMW M4 GT3s and Tressor Attempto Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo IIs, as well as the Grove Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R all came from the 24H Dubai via sea freight, with GruppeM having sent one Mercedes to Bathurst and one to Kyalami following last year’s IGTC season finale.

***SunEnergy1 Racing’s Mercedes, meanwhile, was flown from Daytona, where it took part in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season opener. It has remained in the team’s signature metallic blue livery that was utilized in the Rolex 24, unlike the orange-colored car that took overall victory at Bathurst. That chassis will be used next in the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa in July.

***Grove Racing’s equipment, except for its car, will be sea-freighted to Europe following the race according to EBM owner Earl Bamber, whose team is providing operations for the Grove’s IGTC campaign. Kyalami will mark the team’s final race outing with the Type-991.2 Porsche, which will return to Australia and is slated to be used as a test car for Stephen and Brenton Grove.

***Bamber said the EBM-owned chassis that was used at Bathurst, which has already arrived back at the team’s base in Malaysia, will be re-tubbed after Stephen’s race-ending accident and put up for sale.

***The EBM-run Grove operation has two or three mechanics, its engineer and team manager from Bathurst but is utilizing a largely different crew this weekend according to Bamber, who explained that it had a combination of mechanics from Grove Motorsport’s Supercars operation and EBM’s Porsche Carrera Cup Australia squad for the season opener.

***Gounon is completing a seven-week consecutive run of races on four continents that began with the Hankook 24H Dubai in mid-January, followed by the Roar and Rolex 24 at Daytona, Bathurst 12 Hour and four rounds of the Asian Le Mans Series in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, prior to his arrival in Kyalami on Wednesday.

***The Andorran-licensed driver claimed GTD Pro class honors at Daytona and won Bathurst for the third consecutive time. “It was a crazy traveling trip for seven weeks,” Gounon told Sportscar365. “I don’t know how many miles I did but it had to be something crazy.”

***Habul, Gounon and Luca Stolz essentially hold a ten-point lead in the IGTC drivers’ championship, with Bathurst runner-ups Matt Campbell, Mathieu Jaminet and Thomas Preining not present this weekend. GruppeM’s Maro Engel, Raffaele Marciello and Mikael Grenier are their closest competitors, in third.

***All three points-leading drivers are in Pro-Am class entries at Kyalami, with Stolz split up in the sister SPS Automotive Performance entry. However, with only five Pro class entries, and three eligible for IGTC points, the SunEnergy1 and SPS Mercedes could stand a chance to score significant points in the drivers’ championship.

***Mercedes-AMG enters the event with an 18-point lead over BMW in the manufacturers’ championship, with Porsche four points behind in third. Grove Racing’s Pro-Am class entry is the Stuttgart brand’s only representative this weekend.

***The new-for-2023 Independent Cup sees two of the three registered drivers present, with Jonathan Hui, who scored maximum points at Bathurst, not present in Kyalami. Habul, who was ineligible for points in the season opener due to being in a Pro class entry, is on level points with Stephen Grove, who failed to score points at Bathurst after suffering a race-ending accident.

***Independent Cup drivers are able to drop their worst score from the five-round season.

***Unlike the 2020 and 2019 editions of the race, there will not be a Pole Shootout. Instead, the average time of each car set by its drivers across three 15-minute qualifying sessions will determine the grid for the race. The Pole Shootout was canceled last year due to standing water on the circuit.

***Live streaming coverage will begin on Friday with pre-qualifying and qualifying, followed by Saturday’s race, all available on SRO’s GTWorld YouTube page. David Addison and John Watson will be in the booth, with SRO America’s Amanda Busick on pit lane.

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John