Engen Audi head into Round Seven of the Sasol GTC Africa at this weekend’s Festival of Motoring at Kyalami determined to dominate both races, something that has eluded the team so far in 2018.

In all but one of the rounds this year, Engen Audi drivers Michael Stephen and Simon Moss have qualified 1-2, with one of them powering to victory in the opening race.

Sasol GTC Africa has a reverse grid rule for the round’s second race and Engen Audi team principal, Terry Moss is concerned that the deceptive nature of the Kyalami circuit may make it difficult for the team to achieve an elusive double race day victory.

“On paper Kyalami might look like a circuit with plenty of overtaking opportunities, but the series has been running for three years now and the competition and speed of the individual cars poses a challenge for the Engen Audis,” says Terry Moss.

“Hopefully Kyalami will give us enough opportunities to fight for the win in both races because the reverse grid rule has proven to be challenging for us to win both heats this year.”

With an unusually quick turnaround of just two weeks since Round Six at Zwartkops, the Engen Audi engineers have been under pressure to ensure the team’s Audi A3s are in prime shape at Kyalami.

“We had relatively little damage to our cars after the last round but we still need to do our regular race preparation ahead of every round we compete in,” says team engineer and lead driver, Michael Stephen.

“The bulk checks and general inspections are part of our necessary routine and they all take up time but before we started this run of two races in two weeks, we were well prepared, and we are on schedule for the weekend.”

Round Seven of this year’s Sasol GTC Africa is unique in that it takes place over three days as opposed to the usual two.

On Friday, three practice sessions are scheduled, while Saturday will see early morning qualifying and race 1. The second race will take place on Sunday and will be preceded by a warm up session.

In the race for overall championship honours, things could not be tighter at the top. A mere 8 points separate championship leader Stephen from second-placed Genaro Bonafede (Sasol GTC Racing), with Moss a further nine points adrift in third.

And with just three of the nine round season left to race, a slip-up will certainly derail any of the leading trio’s respective championship ambitions.