Summarize

New leaders and championship shake-ups were the order of the day in the various Dunlop-shod Gauteng Northern Regions Extreme Festival presented by Coca-Cola championships, following action-packed third round races at Zwartkops on Saturday.

“We’re enjoying a great regional racing season and all Zwartkops did over the past weekend, was to shake all the championship logs up across several categories and classes,” Dunlop Tyres Marketing Manager Joanne de Freitas explains. “Whatever the results however, Dunlop, and everyone who drives on Dunlop tyres is the ultimate winner, because what wins on Saturday, stars on Monday. So huge kudos to our regional track heroes for proving that point even stronger every race weekend!”

Among the major title shake-ups, it’s all change on the Dunlop V8 Supercars championship table after Zwartkops. First and foremost, the hero of the day. Ben Morgenrood is racing his orange Mustang in the experimental GTX class. So he does not score championship points. Leaving the rest to fight it out for the title. So despite not winning on the day, Thomas Reib did enough to wrest the championship lead from reverse race 2 winner Warren Lombard, who hit trouble in race 1. 

Rieb now leads GT1 rival Lombard by a provisional nine points. GT2 leaders, Auke Compaan and Steve Herbst were however the big movers on the day, with Compaan jumping three places to third and veteran Herbst two up to fourth overall. Ahead of Richard Fuller who also passed the absent Sam Dahl and Wayne Spicer to sit fifth despite retiring from Saturday’s opening heat. Terry Wilford and Franco Di Matteo meantime moved onto the foot of the log with decent performances in Pretoria following a few tough days at the races for each of them.

There’s a most an interesting tussle going down at the top of the ATE VW Challenge table, with just one point between Class C young gun Adriaan de Beer and unbeaten Class B veteran Stuart Mack. With More cars racing in Class B, full points are scored, while Class B has been a car or two short of the full quota. So while Mack has most impressively won every race from pole position and scored the fastest lap in every heat, his wins have counted for less. Which allows de Beer to lead by a point by a dint of his three full points wins, three second places and five of six bonus points. Behind them, five points split Class C trio Mitch Coetzee, Bryce Pilay and Stuart Konig. Behind them, Jayden Goosen takes over the Class A lead by seven points from Wayne Masters, who missed the Zwartkops round.

Leon Loubser meantime consolidated his overall BMW M Performance Parts Series advantage with a fair haul at Zwartkops to once again take a firm hold on Class A. There was movement behind him as Fabio Fedetto closed right up on Bob Neill and Rick Loureiro made his presence known with a double win. Second overall Renier Smith had a decent day to consolidate his class B advantage over the absent Andreas Meier, while Nek Makris closed Meier down and double winner Lorenzo Gualtieri staked his claim. Salvi Gualtieri had a great day to move up to the Class C title lead over the hapless Hein van der Merwe, who now also has his mirrors full of Varish Ganpath and Oz Biagioni. 

In the smaller BMW classes, Bernard De Gouveia now leads Zwartkops winner Dawie Olivier and Michael Grobler in class D where Andre van Vuuren had a good first day out on Saturday. Wessel Mostert was another driver to benefit a strong day to wrest the Class E lead from Eddie Rodrigues, while Karabo Malemela consolidated his third in class with a good day in Pretoria. And Shaun Dodd opened hiss Clas F advantage up over Zaheer Seedat, Justin Brown and Caren Nienaber, while fellow lady racer Chloe Stuart put herself on the map with a dominant double win on the day.

Moving on to the single seaters, Lendl Jansen made it a hat trick of wins in Dunlop-shod DOE Formula Vee, to extend his 2025 title advantage to a provisional 25 points over the duelling Gert van den Berg and Vaughn Hills, now tied in second. They hold a tiny advantage over MD Bester, who has Peter Hills snapping at his heels with Theodore Vermaak and  Shaun van der Linde also on his case. 

Racing for the first time in the Extreme Festival. The Liqui-Moly Super Vees entertained on their Dunlop tyres as newcomers Juandre Le Roux and Fabienne Lanz shared out the wins. That it was however not enough for either to close down Lushen Ramchander respite his second heat retirement on Saturday. Lushen now leads Juandre and Fabienne and a tight four way spat between Phillip Belingan Albertyn Pienaar, Grant Will and Kosie v d Merwe in that chase.

Dunlop Motorsport now looks ahead to the next round of the National chase at Zwartkops on Saturday 21 June, a week before the Regional chase resumes a week later at Red Star raceway on 28 June.