- Just two rounds left to decide the 2024 champions
- Fameliaris still has work to do to retain the GT title
- Campaan is still the favourite in GT2
The Mobil 1 V8 Supercars competitors will travel to Red Star Raceway, just east of Delmas, for the seventh round of the 2024 Championship. The drivers will seek to claim as many points as possible at the season’s penultimate round, which will take place on 11 and 12 October.
While the drivers have already had one competitive outing at the four-kilometre-long Mpumalanga circuit this year, this time, they will run in an anti-clockwise direction instead of the clockwise route they took back in May.
At the last visit, Julian Fameliaris (Lube-Net / Di Matteo Racing Chevrolet Corvette) claimed every point on offer to move to the top of the GT championship standings, a position he has held since. Headed back to Red Star, he holds a 30-point advantage over Thomas Reib (Mobil 1 / Café 9 Automotive Chevrolet Lumina), but with 102 points still available for the final two rounds, the outcome of the championship is far from certain.
Warren Lombard has shown that the development work his team has been doing on his PepBoys Automotive Ford Mustang is starting to pay off, and he cannot be ruled out of the equation. He is just 16 points adrift of Reib. While Franco di Matteo (Di Matteo Racing / GWR Racing Jaguar XKR) is not in championship contention after mechanical problems derailed his season challenge, he is still a contender for race victories and could take points away from the championship protagonists.
Auke Compaan (Hurricane Automotive Ford Mustang) has a 35-point advantage at the top of the GT2 class standings over Shaun Holtzhauzen but, with the latter not competing this weekend, will only face competition from Steve Herbst (PREI Instrumentation / PPG Coatings / QI Systems Chevrolet Corvette), who is a further three points adrift.
Terry Wilford will have his second outing in the GTX class as he continues to develop his Fuchs Lubricants Ford Mustang.
African Group Lubricants‘ Marketing Manager Nicole Jooste is looking forward to witnessing a high-speed, fierce contest at Red Star Raceway. “With a couple of long straights mixed in with 13 technical corners, Red Star Raceway will put the drivers and their cars to the test, not to mention the Mobil 1 lubricants that go into it. There is also a lot at stake as the season winds down, so expect the level of competition to rise even further.”
As usual, the drivers will use Friday’s practice sessions to set up their cars before they tackle the qualifying session on Saturday morning at 09h05. The first of the two eight-lap races on the day is scheduled for 12h00, with the second at 15h20. Both races will run over ten laps. The entire Extreme Festival race day programme will be broadcast live on the Extreme Festival website.