Sheldon van der Linde scores home victory in Kyalami 9 Hour

South Africa's Sheldon van der Linde scored a home victory when he took the Kyalami 9 Hour chequered flag in the Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 on Saturday night.

Sharing the car with Belgian drivers Dries Vanthoor and Charles Weerts, it was Van der Linde's second win in the Pirelli-sponsored Intercontinental GT Challenge since 2020 when he also won at Kyalami.

The #32 M4 GT3 took the chequered flag 1.7 sec clear of the sister machine shared by Philipp Eng, Augusto Farfus and Maxime Martin who chased Van der Linde to the line after a late Safety Car period slashed the latter’s advantage. Tresor Attempto’s Audi crewed by Mattia Drudi, Ricardo Feller and Patric Niederhauser completed the overall podium another 1.3 sec behind.

It was BMW’s first Intercontinental victory since Farfus and Van der Linde also triumphed in South Africa four seasons ago, while WRT ended a IGTC losing streak stretching back to the 2019 Suzuka 10 Hours where Vanthoor was also part of its winning Audi line-up.

Tresor Attempto’s second R8 LMS GT3 finished fourth overall in the hands of Alex Aka, Dennis Marschall and Markus Winkelhock thanks, in part, to a gearbox problem that denied Maro Engel, Mikael Grenier and Raffaele Marciello a podium shot in their GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3.

Instead, it was SunEnergy1 by SPS’s entry that scored the bulk of Mercedes-AMG’s IGTC points in fifth overall. The car shared by Kenny Habul, Jules Gounon and Yannick Mettler won the event’s Pro-Am class, finished third of the Intercontinental entries, and won IGTC’s Independent Cup.

Mercedes-AMG's Habul and Gounon retain their overall drivers’ championship lead by three points from Van der Linde, Vanthoor and Weerts. However, BMW’s one-two now sees it tied with Mercedes-AMG at the top of the manufacturers’ standings.

HOW IT UNFOLDED

WRT was never headed after seizing control from GruppeM soon after the start despite Farfus and Van der Linde swapping second place at Turn 1 on the opening lap. The home favourite was back ahead with the help of team orders after eight minutes before he hunted down and passed Engel through the Jukskei Sweep with quarter-of-an-hour gone.

Farfus was also past the Mercedes-AMG before the first round of stops began just after the hour mark. But though #33 regularly closed in on #32, there was never any serious threat of a lead change between the two WRT entries which remained no more than four seconds apart until roughly half distance when Weerts began gapping Farfus after each entry had cycled through its three crew members.

Behind, GruppeM’s race was slowly unravelling thanks to a radio issue that forced Grenier to communicate with his team using a mix of the pit board and his Mercedes-AMG’s indicators. But worse was to follow when a gearbox problem restricted the car to gears three, four and five.

That largely accounted for both Audis passing the Canadian in the fourth hour, Drudi doing so in the pits and then Markus Winkelhock on track.

The problem worsened once Engel climbed back aboard and eventually led to the car circulating five or even six seconds off the pace. The team made it to 70% distance in order to be classified and score IGTC points before effectively retiring.

As the evening approached it looked as though Audi might be able to challenge the BMWs. However, as darkness fell so the M4s upped their pace and it wasn’t long before #32 and #33 pulled clear again.

Stradale Motorsport’s Mercedes-AMG beached itself down the Mineshaft, which necessitated a Full Course Yellow and subsequent Safety Car period.

That left the top-three were separated by a second when racing resumed with 20 minutes remaining. But while Niederhauser, on old tyres, didn’t have the pace to challenge, Martin did initially hustle Van der Linde before the South African edged clear to claim his second IGTC win on home soil aboard a BMW.

Further back, the combination of pace and fault-free performances from all three of its drivers and pit crew helped SunEnergy1 clinch a Pro-Am victory over Grove Racing’s Porsche and the SPS automotive performance Mercedes-AMG.

The South African team of Charl Arangies, Arnold Neveling and Clint Weston (Stradale Mercedes-AMG GT3) scored their first IGTC points in eighth overall, one place ahead of GruppeM’s hobbled but classified entry.

The Kyalami Supercup for entries only contesting the opening hour was won by NGK Pablo Clark Racing’s Mikaeel Pitamber who beat Sun Moodley (BigFoot Express Racing) and Joseph Ellerine (MJR Motorsport).

After races in Australia and South Africa within the space of a month IGTC now takes a break before resuming at the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa on June 29 — July 2.

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