Racing Up a Step: Shifting into Sixth Gear in Polo Cup
A Tough Weekend of Learning at Dusty Delmas
“Still, I had a good battle, enjoyed a few dices, and learned some huge lessons, which made it a worthwhile trip after all. “Results? “Nothing to speak of. “Did we learn? Hell yes. “It was a tough weekend with a few hard knocks, but mission accomplished. “Now go back and dust off, figure out where we can improve, and we will come back stronger. “Bring it on!”
We skipped the penultimate Polo round and planned to travel up to Kyalami for the final as curtain raiser for the Intercontinental GT final 9 Hour up there. We used all of the double dose of four hours testing allowed between races and sent the car up to Jo’burg. And then Omicron struck, and the main race was postponed while we were on the road to the airport to fly up! The long and short of it was that the Polo Cup final was shifted to our Killarney home track in Cape Town a week later!
So, we trucked the car back and turned up excited, knowing that our testing pace at Killarney was strong. The weekend started perfectly as Giordano and his Bullion IT Polo caused an upset to set the pace throughout practice. In Polo Cup, it’s all down to qualifying, so knowing our pace, we bolted the required set of brand-new Dunlop Potenza semi slicks and our man stood a the front of the queue when the light went green.
A Qualified Catastrophe
Alas, it was not to be… Those tires have just one flying lap in them and we need to exploit that spite on either the first flying lap, or build up slower to do it on the second lap. Giordano was severely baulked by four cars somehow being allowed out the pits into his and another quick rival’s par at the start of his all-important flying lap. That was it — the weekend was destroyed as Gio qualified into the depths of the dodgem car mid pack. Unlike in many series, there’s no rule against impeding in Polo Cup. Another hard lesson learned.
The weekend did improve from there through a bruising first heat, but race 2 made up a little for our disappointment. “I was happy with my second race,” Giordano admitted. “I managed to break out of that mid pack madness and kept close enough to the back of the lead pack, knowing they’d get into each other on the last lap. “That’s exactly what happened. “I closed right down on Tate Bishop and Jason Coetzee, gave it everything in turn 3, got next to them in T4 and we headed down the back straight three abreast…
“Tate did not see me there and moved over on me — his mirror was folded due to earlier contact, so I had to take to the grass at 120 mph to avoid major contact. “I just kept it pinned and had a huge sideways moment, but I managed to catch it and I was still able to put a move on Tate in the final turn to steal 8th. “Not quite the result we’d hoped for with our practice pace in the Bullion IT Polo, but we were prevented from showing it after that rather peculiar qualifying incident.”