The King of the Hill challenge at the 16th edition of the Simola Hillclimb is officially underway, with the opening practice session completed. The first half of the 1.9 km Simola Hill course has been resurfaced and the bumps before Turn 3 removed, so all expectations are that new records will be set across the three categories: Road Car and Supercar; Modified Saloon Car; and Single Seaters and Sports Cars.
Robert Wolk was fastest in the opening session in his Gould GR55 on 39.654 sec – his second outing with this car. Unfortunately, the highly anticipated battle between current Simola Hillclimb record-holder hasn’t materialised as Andre Bezuidenhout’s Gould GR55 experienced engine troubles once again during pre-event testing.
Silvio Scribante was second in his Audi RS3 (41.538 sec), and he is expected to be a serious challenger for the Modified Saloon Car title this year with extensive work done on his car this year. Five-time winner Franco Scribante was third in his Nissan R35 GT-R (41.649 sec), ahead of defending champion Pieter Zeelie (Toyota MR2 ) on 41.730 sec.
Clint Weston has already thrown down the gauntlet in the standard production car category, posting an impressive time of 42.981 seconds in the Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S E Performance. This unofficial time was 0.3 sec quicker than his winning time from last year, and undercut the current class record of 42.935 seconds held by JP van der Walt in the Porsche 911 Turbo S from 2024!
