Deletraz Crowned Champion, Di Lorenzo takes Kyalami Win

Luigi Di Lorenzo claimed victory in the SRO E-Sport GT Series pro finale at Kyalami while Louis Deletraz claimed the championship for Porsche.

Di Lorenzo made an early pass on eventual series winner Deletraz on the opening lap and later fended off a challenge from Bentley’s Jordan Pepper to win by a narrow margin in his Aston Martin V8 Vantage GT3 at the South African circuit.

Deletraz led the opening few corners from pole but quickly came under attack as he appeared to struggle with tire temperature.

He was swiftly passed by Di Lorenzo and Pepper, while Angus Fender in the McLaren 720s GT3 was tagged and spun as he and the Porsche ran side-by-side.

Ben Barnicoat got off to a flying start finding himself in fifth after the first 10 minutes of racing having started 16th, however lost a place to the Bentley of Andy Soucek.

Soucek was subsequently handed a drive-through penalty for contact with Lorenzo Marcucci’s Audi on the opening lap but did not serve the penalty and was excluded from the race a few laps later giving fifth back to Barnicoat.

Pepper closed up behind race leader Di Lorenzo as the race reached halfway and had a number of looks at the Aston Martin.

The pair made contact as Pepper put a move down the inside at Turn 13, with the Bentley driver spinning around and losing a chunk of time, but holding onto second.

On the final lap the lead gap came down to under a second again but Di Lorenzo held Pepper off to take the chequered flag 0.640s ahead of the latter in second in the final race of the season.

Deletraz too held off title rival Barnicoat for third which was good enough for the Swiss driver to seal the pro series championship after scoring points in every round.

Michael O’Brien completed the top five in his McLaren.

It was a tough race for title protagonist Marcucci after being spun by Soucek early and having his chances dashed before finishing 10th.