Gavin Cronje flew the South African flag proudly at Belgium’s famous Spa-Francorchamps circuit last weekend when he and his Belgian co-driver Nicolas Verdonck won both races in the opening round of the brand new Formula Le Mans Cup competition for prototype sports cars.
The 30-year-old from Johannesburg combined perfectly with Verdonck in the France-based DAMS entry to win the first-ever Formula Le Mans race on Saturday from the back of the grid and went on to score a memorable double on Sunday in the 23-lap curtain raiser to the Spa 1000km endurance race.
Verdonck had damaged the race car badly in an accident in qualifying practice on Friday and the DAMS team was forced to use the spare car. DAMS also looks after the South African A1GP car, in which Cronje has appeared this season at Malaysia and South Africa as the ‘rookie’ driver.
“Nico drove the first stint and set us up nicely for the second stint in which I caught and passed the leaders in the final exciting laps,” said Cronje.
“After all the drama of the day before and a long night at work by the DAMS pit crew, it was a great result. To follow this up with a second win on Sunday, when I started and then handed over to Nico, and to do this at a famous circuit like the 7.0-km Spa-Francorchamps, was unbelievable. The DAMS team did a fantastic job with the car.”
The new monotype formula, which is aimed at drivers and teams wanting to get started in prototype sports car racing before graduating to the longer endurance races, features a carbon fibre monocoque sports car penned by ORECA and powered by a 6.2-litre V8 engine from General Motors that delivers 430bhp and 630Nm of torque.
Cronje, Rotax Max world karting champion in 2000 and a former rookie driver in South Africa’s entry in the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport, is the reigning domestic Formula Volkswagen champion and has secured a deal with the topflight DAMS team to contest the entire 12-race Formula Le Mans series. The next round is at the famous Le Mans circuit in France in June over the Le Mans 24-Hour weekend.
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