SUBARU'S HENNIE GROENEWALD TAKES OVERALL VICTORY

Hennie Groenewald took overall victory at the final round of the Bridgestone Production Car Championship at Khayalami, bringing a fitting close to the Subaru WRX STI hatchback’s racing career.

The Sasolracing driver claimed a dominant win, adding a 5th and 2nd place overall to his scorecard for the day. Richard Pinard had his most enjoyable race meeting of the year in the second Sasolracing Subaru but his efforts were not reflected on the results sheets.

The team was hopeful of retaining second overall in the Production Car Championship.

“It was a difficult race”, explained Hennie on Race 3.  “The car was aquaplaning down the main straight.  I could hold Gennaro off for most of the lap but I fell off the road down the mineshaft and could hear in my mind how Carel was chastising me for losing second in the championship”, he laughed.  “It was risky out there but it paid off for the team”.

Reflecting on the season, SP Race Engineering Team Principal Carel Pienaar said: “The highlight for me was the Zwartkops meeting in May when we achieved a clean sweep of pole, all the fastest laps and all the race wins, which is something that has never been achieved in Production Car racing before.  Our sheer consistency kept us in the championship hunt at the start of the year as we got to grips with some strange technical situations with the car.  Hennie had the most number of wins this year, crossing the line first on 8 occasions compared to Michael Stephen’s 7 and the BMW drivers with 5 each”.

“My low point has been the rather sinister deals done in production cars and the rules that are not adhered to.  As team principal, I am going to force the administrators to clean up the series”, he warned. 

“We are building two new Subaru WRX STI sedans for 2013 so there will be no rest for SP Racing”.