After a successful season with the Toyota GR Cup, where 6 GR Yaris and 7 GR86 thrilled crowds on the national circuit, Toyota Gazoo Racing made one last-ditch effort to cement the fact that their road cars make pretty darn good race cars. The GR Cup saw mildly modified GR offerings battle against each other for top honours, but the final exploit would be to show how capable the GR86 is when stacked against some of the country's best endurance racers.
Related: Toyota GR86 (2023) Road vs Race - Attacking the track in the GR86
The South African Endurance Series (SAES) has hosted events across the country, and to wrap up their season, they managed to secure the iconic Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit for the final round. The Kyalami 9hr was an institution in the late 60s and 70s that attracted attention from international competitors. Political tensions and an evolving social landscape saw it fall by the wayside, but SAES aims to change the face of endurance racing. It starts here with a return to the legendary track for the SAES 9hrs of Kyalami.
Defending the title
This is not the first year that Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa has attempted this. Last year, at the 9hr event at Killarney Raceway in Cape Town, Toyota entered two GR Yaris, one fielding a team of motoring journalists who had competed in the GR Cup in its inaugural year and another with Toyota executives behind the wheel. The team set out to simply show that a rather standard GR Yaris could compete and finish the 9-hour ordeal but ended up walking away with the overall win in the Index of Performance.
The Index of Performance is the award for consistency. It requires that the team run consistent lap times for the duration of the event with every pit stop, tyre change, driver change, refuel and mechanical breakdown pushing you further from your target time. To win this, you need the fewest pit stops, quick driver changes and, ideally, no mechanical breakdowns.
Toyota again fielded two cars for the 2023 9hr event with motoring media consisting of Mark Jones (The Citizen), Denis Droppa (Times Live), Setshaba Mashigo (ASAMM) and myself in one GR86 (and, coincidently, the very same car I campaigned in the 2023 GR Cup), while Brendon Staniforth from Maroela Media would join Riaan Esterhuysen, Mario de Sousa, and Anand Pather in the sister car.
Only a few minor modifications were carried out to the GR86 to make it race-ready. It was initially fitted with semi-slick Dunlop Direzza D03G tyres and a Powerbrake big brake kit. Camber bolts were fitted to the stock suspension to allow for a slightly greater range of adjustment and a cat-back exhaust that freed up a few ponies but was more for the sound. Naturally, safety equipment was added in the form of a roll cage, OMP race seat and harnesses. The passenger seat was removed, and a few interior trims, but the radio and 98% of the electronics remained. For the endurance race, a long-range fuel cell and MoTech data logger were added, allowing Freddie from Fast Developments to monitor the vitals from the pits. I'm sure you can agree then, that this is a rather standard, road-going car that was entered.
The challenge
The Friday practice allowed most of the drivers to get a chance to sample the GR86 on the Kyalami circuit, and respectable times were posted, but they were a long way off of the front of the pack. The Toyota team would be sharing the track with bespoke GT3 race cars ranging from Lamborghinis, Audi R8s, Aston Martins, and dedicated Ginetta G57 race cars capable of lapping a full 40 seconds a lap quicker than us. This also meant we could expect them in our mirrors every 4 or 5 laps. Staying out of their way would be challenging while remaining fast and consistent.
The mandatory night practice saw the team take to the track in the rain, a challenging and daunting combination. Only two of us had night racing experience, but the wet conditions and semi-slick tyres compounded matters. My stint was ultimately cut short with a red flag as a Backdraft Cobra had beached itself on one of the sausage curbs.
Saturday rolled around, and it was decided that Jones would head out first, aiming for a 2hr 20 stint behind the wheel before switching drivers and refuelling. Fighting off the onslaught from the additional competitors in the 1hr Dash, Jones was aiming for a 2:20.000 lap time. Jones drove with surgical precision and managed to post lap times in the 2:20s 18 times in a row. This is what was required to win the Index!
Droppa filled the seat for the second stint, continuing to push on and running consistent times despite the traffic and managed to stay out of trouble, managing the wear on both the tyres and the brakes. I was up next, and my stint would see me navigating traffic in the fading light and the later afternoon thunder shower that drenched the track and brought out several safety cars. While our times dropped off in the wet weather, so did everyone else's. Many of the larger cars pitted for rain tyres, whereas we stayed out, fighting the conditions and sticking to our 3-stop strategy. The challenge wasn't the long duration behind the wheel; it was the mental focus required to run 2:20 where possible when a 2:16 was entirely possible. Knowing how much to hold back requires constant thought and consideration for the immediate situation in traffic.
Mashigo had the final stint, the final two hours in the dark. With the circuit now drying out a little, he was able to push on and get considerably closer to the target lap time. Night time is the dangerous time, and it was in these final two hours that we saw multiple retirements. Our plucky little GR86 and that of our teammates carried on without fault and marched on into the night hours.
The clock ticked on, and as the 9hr timer wrapped up, the team celebrated the finish, having climbed to 2nd place in our class and 14th overall with our teammates in 3rd and 15th respectively. The final prize was the outright win for the GR86 media team in the Index of Performance, taking the title for the second year in a row. The GR86 Toyota team placed third in the Index after an unscheduled pitstop towards the end dashed their hopes of holding onto second place.
The SAES 9hr of Kyalami was ultimately won by the Adjust4Sleep Novo Proto of Nick Adcock, Michael Jensen, Leyton Fourie and Jonothan Thomas, and was followed by the BBR Porsche 911 GT3 Cup piloted by the team of Hein Lategan, Verissimo Tavares and Keagan Masters. The podium was rounded off by the aforementioned beached Backdraft Cobra of Mike McLoughlin and Steve Clark who powered through the 9hr after starting from the back of the grid.
