Nicholas van Weely
Just three weeks after tackling round one of the South African Single-Seater season at Zwartkops Raceway, the Formula Ford Duratec competitors head to Killarney for round two of the 2015 championship.
The Western Cape round takes place on Saturday, April 11, and will see these open-wheel racers pick up the battles from round one. Running a single category this season the Formula Ford Duratec championship has already seen some surprises, just a single round into the year.
At the top of that list must be Julian van der Watt’s (42 – Investchem Mygale SJ08) performance, qualifying at the top of the leaderboard and winning the first race of the weekend. Definitely a good, strong start to the season for Van der Watt and Killarney will be his opportunity to build on this performance.
Van der Watt was not, however, the most successful racer on the day. That honour went to Robert Wolk (41 – Chemical Logistics Mygale) who started race one in third, finished second, won the second race of the day and claimed overall victory for the first round.
In doing so, Wolk has shown that he will again be a force to be reckoned with this single-seater season. As the championship leader going into round two, Wolk will be faced with two goals – to extend his lead and to keep the competition behind him, battling to keep up.
This is going to be quite a task considering the qualifying session saw just one second separating the fastest 11 racers at Zwartkops. A similar performance is expected from the field at Killarney where the longer straights will give the competitors a chance to extract maximum performance from their race cars.
Dewald Brummer (11 – MAD Racing Mygale SJ09) and Matthew Merton (5 – Hypress Mygale) will both be racers to watch at the Western Cape event. Both produced some good results at the first round and will be keen to improve on their fortunes even further as the season progresses.
The reigning champion in the South African Single-Seaters will be looking to make a big impact on the series in round two. Nicholas van Weely (1 – Magnificent Paints & Hardware Van Diemen) made good progress up the order during the first two races of the season, but currently finds himself in third place overall – a position he shares with Brummer going into the second round.
With seven rounds in the season for 2015, and one already completed, the SASS competitors have just six more opportunities to score as many points as possible. Competitors will have to bring their best to the Western Cape if they want to take control of the championship – or be amongst the top contenders as the season progresses.