Round 1 of the GR Cup Media Challenge saw me experience a whole race season at once, with the sweet taste of near-victory and the bitter taste of racing incidents and learning to recover from them. Better to experience all of that now to fortify the mental fortitude for the season ahead. Round 2 sees the Media Challenge heading to Red Star Raceway in Delmas.
Related: GR Cup Round 1 - Post Race Garage Talk
About Red Star Raceway
Red Star Raceway, interestingly, wasn't designed around cars but rather motorbikes. However, it does see its fair share of cars throughout the year. As a result, it's considered a complex racetrack with 13 turns over 4km. It's also a fairly young circuit, with development beginning only in 2009. There's a mix of medium-speed bends, hairpins, and sets of complex corners, where if you don't know your racing line, you can set yourself up for a bad lap. Thankfully, there's also plenty of run off if you lose it. Regarding direction, from January to June, the circuit runs anticlockwise, and for the remainder of the year, it runs clockwise, though some events will dictate the direction.
My experience and this event's setup
I've had private experience with Red Star Raceway through casual track days on the full and short circuits. The most experience, however, came from the 2025 24 Hours of Ilamuna endurance race, which was run in an anti-clockwise direction. That alone adds up to 6 hours of track experience, which is plenty. However, I haven't done the course in a clockwise direction before.
Unfortunately for me, this event will run clockwise on the full circuit, but the experience in the anti-clockwise direction will prove beneficial. Other challenges include my competition: Nabil Abdool, who has run the circuit before (we were teammates in the aforementioned endurance race; fate is an interesting thing), and I also have to contend with Craig Nicholson's experience behind the track wheel. That, and the weather looks like it's going to rain cats and dogs over the weekend, wet tracks are a great equaliser.
Considering how the last round went, more preparations were in order. Despite the track's numerous inaccuracies in the unofficial Red Star Raceway simulation, I have done some training to familiarise myself with the layout. Finally, improvements in my own Race Craft have been made to better strategise manoeuvres. Best believe I'm firing myself up for this round.
Current Standings
| Position | Driver (Publication) | Points |
| 1 | Nabil Abdool (SuperSport) | 14 |
| 2 | Craig Nicholson (News24) | 9 |
| 3 | Tayedza Mbiri (AutoTrader) | 8 |
| 4 | Justin Ford (ENCA) | 6 |
| 5 | Kumbi Mtshakazi / Brandon Jacobs (Khulekani On Wheels) | 4 |
| 6 | Naresh Maharaj (The Witness, Algoa FM) | 3 |
Catch the action at Red Star Raceway, Delmas, Mpumalanga - 18 April 2026
Where can I buy tickets and watch the livestream?
You can buy tickets for the events on Webtickets.co.za. If you can't catch the event but want to livestream it, you can watch it on Extremefestival.co.za, the Extreme Festival Facebook page, or 2WheelsTV on YouTube.
