The past weekend’s (7-8 June) fourth round of the 2024 DOE Formula Vee Partnered with CIM Lubricants Championship saw Tjaden Tromp and Chloe Stuart head into the midway mark of the season on the back of a strong performance at Zwartkops Raceway.
The TC Racing outfit’s results were headed up by Tromp, for whom this was the first outing at the circuit in the series. His extensive experience in testing proved to be an advantage, with his participation in Friday’s practice sessions being limited, with only two sessions, due to academic commitments in the morning. The first of his sessions, the third one for the day, was aborted early due to an incident, leaving him only one session to complete his setup. However, he found his pace quickly and backed it up with 11th on the grid in Saturday morning’s qualifying session.
Both races saw him feature prominently in the midfield battles, holding his own to record 10th and 12th place in the two races. This resulted in 11th place in the event’s overall classification, based on aggregate times for competitors completing the full 22-lap distance.
Apart from the Motorsport South Africa championship results, where Tromp ranks 11th, Formula Vee South Africa also has two category-specific points tables. In the first, the Association Championship, Tromp holds third place while heading up the Rookie Class. What makes this even more significant is that he has achieved these positions with one less scoring round than most of the field.
“We pushed hard, and our results showed it.” Said Tromp. “While this is not the outright best result we recorded, this weekend saw a significantly larger entry list than in Round 3, with us getting closer to the front. In a year where progress is our goal, progress was certainly made.”
Stuart had one practice session more to take advantage of on Friday, ending the day with just about three seconds gained. On Saturday morning, she secured 16th place on the grid. Mechanical gremlins played a part again, with her Race 1 outing being aborted due to a broken clutch.
However, Stuart already built a reputation for not giving up when the chips are down, and with the part replaced, she too delivered a strong performance in the midfield to finish 14th in Race 2.
Finding herself in joint 17th place on the Motorsport South Africa points table, the Formula Vee South Africa Association Points Table sees her eighth while she trails teammate Tromp in the Rookie Class.
“When we face challenges, we face them head-on.” Said Stuart. “While our race day didn’t start as we hoped it would, we got back into it and salvaged a great result. With the car running fine, we could back up Friday’s pace gains with a competitive performance in the final race. This was certainly a weekend worth celebrating.”
The next DOE Formula Vee Partnered with CIM Lubricants Championship outing for the duo will be the season’s coastal round at the Killarney International Raceway, which will also mark the commencement of the season’s second half on 9-10 August.
Issued by Brandsponential on behalf of Victron Energy South Africa
MSA Publishes media releases from a host of different sources on our website as a service to the sport. It is not practically possible to vet/approve every release that is published. Some news items and articles are written by correspondents and do not necessarily represent MSA’s views.