Welcome to Volkswagen South Africa

The BP Volkswagen rally team scored another victory in their national championship campaign this weekend. Enzo Kuun and Guy Hodgson led the field to victory at the Sasol Rally on Saturday afternoon.
 
“To win you have to finish,” said Kuun after the event. “Chasing the leaders is dangerous to your rally chances, we were happy to just bide our time.”
 
This strategy certainly paid off for the pair who claimed their sixth Sasol Rally victory with this event. They achieved their win thanks to a consistent performance and six stage wins of the total 16 stages.
 
In true Sasol Rally style the event was both filled with dynamic action and also extremely punishing for competitors – and no-one could have predicted the result. From the outset it appeared as if the BP Volkswagen team would be chasing the Ford Fiesta of Conrad Rautenbach and Peter Marsh.
 
The pair claimed the stage one victory and second and third place were taken by the Toyota team. The first of the Volkswagens was that of defending champions Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries who crossed the first stage finish line for fourth.
 
With a 7.5 second deficit the defending champs turned up the heat to claim both stages two and three to lead the rally, before it was again snatched back by the Ford team to close the first day 2.4 seconds ahead of the BP Volkswagen rally team.
 
This massive battle between the two leading cars saw them more than 30 seconds ahead of the field at the end of the first day – and seven stages of rallying. This left nine stages of competition for Saturday, all promising similar high levels of action.
 
While the lead drivers had been focussed on battling for stage dominance, it was Enzo Kuun and Guy Hodgson who quietly claimed two stage victories, putting them in a strong position for the onslaught of day two. By the end of the first day they were four seconds ahead of their teammates Jan Habig and Ralph Pitchford and in third on the road on Saturday morning.
 
As the top finishers of Friday, Rautenbach/Marsh and Fekken/Arries were the first two cars on the road on Saturday morning. They immediately resumed their battle of the previous day, pushing hard for results. Stage eight saw Rautenbach lead Fekken by 0.8 of a second, with Fekken then reversing the roles in stage nine to lead by 2.4 seconds before Rautenbach then took the lead again in stage 10 by 5.9 seconds.
 
Stage 11 brought their fight to an end when Rautenbach suffered engine damage and Fekken hit a hidden rock in the stage hard enough to damage his gearbox, break an engine mount and shear the engine pulleys. This eliminated both leaders and promoted Kuun and Hodgson to the head of the field – where they stayed to win the event.
 
Habig and Pitchford meanwhile found themselves embroiled in a battle for second place with Johnny Gemmell and Philip Archenoul in the S2000 Toyota Auris. It was eventually the Toyota pair that pipped Habig and Pitchford to the finish by 19 seconds.
 
“We were losing time during the rally,” says Habig. “We dropped down from second to third and the problem we were having seemed to be somewhere in the higher gears.”
 
While a quicker performance might have been desirable, Habig and Pitchford have closed the gap a little to the frontrunners. Kuun and Hodgson also benefit as they now move to the lead in the 2010 championship.
 
In the A7 class Gugu Zulu and Shaun Visser are celebrating their first rally finish this year – and also a second place on the podium in their class.
 
“The conditions were tricky,” says Zulu. “I struggled for rhythm and we were battling with the car misting up inside – even the cars from lower classes were beating us at one point.”
 
Despite these problems the duo put up a good fight in their class finishing just over a minute behind the class leaders.
 
In class A5 the BP Volkswagen Citi Golf of André Cleenwerck and Kesevan Naidoo were doing well right up to stage 10. Then, with no warning, their fuel pump stopped working apparently from an electrical fault. This happened on landing just after a yump and the pair were forced into retirement.
 
Frustratingly, this is the second DNF (did not finish) for Cleenwerck and Naidoo who will be scratching their heads trying to work out how they can reverse their recent run of bad luck.
 
The next rally for the BP Volkswagen team is at the end of May where they continue the onslaught on the 2010 championship title in the S2000, A7 and A5 classes.