BONAFEDE HITS SWEET SPOT IN EAST LONDON

A convincing class win from pole position by Gennaro Bonafede in the opening Bridgestone production car race was the highlight for Team Ferodo of the penultimate round of the WesBank Super Series at the East London grand prix circuit on Saturday.

The 20-year-old Pretoria University student and his Ferodo Volkswagen Golf GTi were in fine form right from the first practice session on

Friday and carried the momentum through to Saturday, where Bonafede earned pole position on the starting grid for the first of the day’s two back-to-back sprint races and also for the all-important feature race with its double points.

Bonafede overcame a spirited challenge from Heinz Bose (Mazda3) to take his third race win of his first season in production cars by 0,190 sec.  With the top six finishers from race one starting race two in reverse order, the Bridgestone production car rookie was sixth on the grid for the second six-lapper.  Contact with the similar car of championship leader Graeme Nathan saw Bonafede go off in the complex and drop to seventh place early in the race.  He recovered well to finish third at the chequered flag.

There was every reason to be confident of a good result in the feature race and a chance to leapfrog second-placed Gary Formato in the championship with one race meeting remaining.  But the misfire that had plagued his more recent races returned just as the team was getting ready for the final race of the day.  There was no time to change the engine and Bonafede was forced to take up his pole position on the grid with an engine running on three cylinders.

He was predictably swamped by the field on the first lap and struggled on in a vain attempt to score championship points, finally finishing 10thand four laps down.

Ferodo team-mate Devin Robertson had no luck at all.  After arriving late for practice on Friday because of matric exam commitments, the 18-year-old from Alberton qualified a respectable third despite experiencing a problem changing gears.  His bad luck with the traditional draw for grid positions saw him start both races from sixth place.

He continued to struggle with the Polo’s gearbox in race one and finished fifth.  The team replaced the gearbox for race two and he ended an unrewarding weekend with a second successive fifth place finish.

The final round of the championship is at Kyalami on November 27 and 28, when the WesBank Super Series will share top billing with the international Superstars Series for V8 production cars.

STORY COURTESY OF PETER BURROUGHES COMMUNICATIONS