SA drivers battle in difficult conditions

Jonathan Wiehahn was the best place South African driver after yesterday’s qualifying heats for the Rotax Max Junior World Final.

A costly spin meant Wiehahn qualified 14th, one place ahead of Arnold Neveling who is a massive 13kg overweight. Although the weight limit had been increased to 145 kg our South African was overweight. Riccardo Raciti was a lowly 33rd and goes into the last chance race where the top ten will join the grid for the final.

England’s Ben Cooper starts from pole with Estonian Kenneth Hilderbrand alongside.

The Senior Rotax class is headed by Luuk Glansdorp (Netherlands) with Malaysian Aaron Lim next.

Ralph Odendaal battled gamely but couldn’t manage better than 18th after an off in one of the heats. Zimbabwe’s Gerard Peters was down in 48th and has a lot of work to do in the Last Chance race.

There were no races for the RM1/DD2 class after the day’s programme was revised due to torrential rain in the morning that resulted in parts of the track being flooded.

Orr’s problem on Thursday was that he had pinched the fuel line to lean the mixture at the start and in the process had pulled it off the carburettor! He came off in a spin, but he bounced back to set the fastest lap while Cristiano Morgado won.