High Class Racing will enter an Audi R8 LMS Evo for the Kyalami 9 Hours in cooperation with Audi Customer Racing and Team WRT Team.
The effort, in the final round of the 2021 Intercontinental GT Challenge Powered by Pirelli campaign due to take place on December 2-4 will see High Class Racing’s GT2 European Championship winning pairing of Anders Fjordbach and Mark Patterson joined by the team’s reserve driver Michael Markussen, his first official race with High Class Racing.
The team will sport the colours of the leading South African rugby team, The Sharks, for the event with a special one-off livery matching the brand of the Durban-based squad.
After a season that saw Fjordbach and Patterson campaign a brand new Audi R8 LMS GT2 to the Championship with 5 wins, 8 podiums, 3 Pole Positions and 8 fastest laps, Kyalami will see the team’s first-ever participation in a GT3 endurance race.
Remarkably it will be the very first race at his ‘home’ track fro South-African born and now US-domiciled Mark Patterson:
“With over 70 global race tracks under my belt already, Kyalami is not one of them. This track has a long heritage, including F1 races. Can’t wait to try to figure this one out, like Misano and Hockenheim earlier this year where our High Class entry helped itself to podiums and trophies on unfamiliar tracks. This race has an extra layer of meaning for me, having been born in South Africa, as I turn 70 just a few days after the 9 Hour race is over. Please don’t let Anders know that!”.
The Kyalami 9h is an endurance sports car race contested at Kyalami, Midrand, South Africa. The first races were held from 1958 to 1960 at a circuit at the Grand Central Airport near Midrand before moving to Kyalami in 1961. The event was a mainstay until the late 1980s, including hosting three rounds of the World Sportscar Championship, however was only held three times between 1989 and 2018 to finally be revived in 2019 as part of the Intercontinental GT Challenge.
Anders Fjordbach: “We are so happy to keep working with Audi Sport customer racing, who has historically played a significant role in the team’s heritage and development. It won’t be my first endurance race behind the wheel of a GT3 but racing in this historic and challenging track gives me extra motivation. I’m really excited to share this experience with Mark as the ice of the cake of a mega year together and of course, it will be nice to work again alongside Michael as I did back in 2015 but now in his first race with the team after long-time helping us as reserve driver”.
Michael Markussen: “Been given the opportunity to drive the famous Kyalami 9h with High Class Racing is something I’m really, really humble about. Mark Patterson & Anders Fjordbach are a great team, they have just won the European GT2 Championship in their Audi R8 GT2. So been given the opportunity to share the car with these two, is something special. And to do it at the home track of Mark Patterson in an Audi R8 LMS GT3 is fantastic. I will go to the task, focused and ready to extract everything and give the team back a big result for giving me this opportunity”.
