2018 South African GP : Preview

The only African race of the season takes place at the Kyalami circuit in Midrand, somewhere between Johannesburg and Pretoria, one of three capital cities in South Africa. It is also the highest race of the season at nearly 1,500 metres above sea level, and entering on the highest of highs after Melbourne is Alessandro Farina, who took his maiden win last time out and will be looking to join Lewis Hamilton, Ayrton Senna, and Michael Schumacher as race winners of the South African circuit.

A cool head pays dividends for Farina

The opening race at Melbourne delivered a fascinating race where much of the initial pecking order was as predicted with Tornado Motorsport, Andrew Racing, and Shake ‘n’ Bake Motorsport fighting for pole position with Gojira AutoSport lurking in the background. Despite a superb outbraking manoeuvre into the first corner to take the lead, Fernando Alonso’s race pace was hamstrung by Shake ‘n’ Bake’s uncharacteristically conservative tyre choice and was consequently shadowed by reigning champion Vaino Kimminen and Farina during the first stint before Farina got the jump on both after the first round of pitstops to take the lead. The Italian then steadily pulled away for the rest of the race and kept his head to win after a car problem developed at his final pitstop, costing him around three seconds. Mugen have remained tight-lipped on what the issue was, but it’ll raise question marks about their reliability, especially as Lewis Hamilton suffered a catastrophic electrical failure, caused by a broken alternator. Another driver experiencing a tough start to the season was Sebastian Vettel, whose suspension failure pitched him into the wall at the final corner. With Daniel Ricciardo also failing to finish, it wasn’t the start Andrew were hoping for.

One driver who caught the attention of the paddock was the debuting Charles Leclerc, who appeared to have prioritised a race set-up compared to his teammate, and his lowly qualifying position of 9th meant that he had to get his elbows out. His main victims were the two Andrew drivers with Ricciardo collecting front wing damage from a chain reaction with Mattia Alfonsi, and then Leclerc risked his own team scoring no points at all as he tapped Kimminen on the final lap before making his move stick into turn 3 for 2nd with his teammate eventually finishing 3rd. Tornado’s double podium finish means that they are 2nd in the Teams Championship and will participate in Group B for Friday’s sessions at Kyalami with the running order being as follows:

Group A
Gojira AutoSport
Shake ‘n’ Bake Motorsport
FJR
GR Motorsports
Tildesley GP
Andrew Racing
Galaxy Grand Prix

Group B
Tornado Motorsport
Ajay Motorsports
Mitchell
CBA Racing
Willows Racing
Monolith Racing System

Who will emerge victorious at Kyalami?

Last season’s race at Kyalami was an easy lights-to-flag victory for Lewis Hamilton, who will be hoping for a stronger alternator belt this time around in order to kickstart his championship campaign. Overtaking proved to be extremely difficult last season which may convince teams to pursue a more qualifying-biased set-up to secure track position, something FJR didn’t do at Melbourne which resulted in a terrible qualifying performance. Although both drivers recovered well to round out the points finishers with Catharina Caracciola putting in a particularly impressive drive from 21st to 7th despite a car issue of her own, FJR will need to rethink their approach if they’re to consistently challenge the frontrunners. Their JB-18 chassis has a lot of potential with Shake ‘n’ Bake’s Courtney Cass keeping a close eye on their progress, but can they convert that potential?

Support Races

As in Melbourne, FF2M will be supporting the main series, and STV Racing got off to a flying start at Melbourne with Lando Norris achieving the grand slam of pole position, fastest lap, and victory to join an illustrious group of drivers to win their debut FF2M race which include Sebastian Vettel, Tomas Gonzalez, Vaino Kimminen, and Catharina Caracciola. Norris’ win was backed by Cristobal Alvarez joining him on the podium with the Willows Junior of Daisuke Sekiya splitting the STV pair. In the sprint, it was Willows’ turn to take to the top step as Alex Palou took full advantage of the reverse grid to take his first win with 2017 FF3M graduates Yokikawa Sato and Jay Follmer completing the podium.

Conversely, it was a disastrous start to the season for Shake ‘n’ Bake Junior. Their two drivers, Bram de Boer and Jorge Diaz are highly rated and could challenge for the championship, but incidents in the feature race left them way down the order and subsequently hamstrung for the sprint. Similarly, the revered Spaniel team had hoped for better with just a single point in the sprint race from former Shake ‘n’ Bake driver Itsuki Yoshida and a low key first weekend for American Colton Herta. Can both teams regain momentum and challenge STV and Willows?

Coverage Details

Race highlights will be broadcast on Sunday at 16:00 GMT with FJR’s James Brickles in the commentary box.

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