WATCH LIVE: Simola Hillclimb ‘King of the Hill’ resumes after blistering Saturday quali

A battle of old foes, former winners and title hopefuls have set the scene for an exciting showdown on Sunday, the final day of the 2025 Simola Hillclimb in Knysna.

Saturday’s three qualifying sessions saw 2021 winner Pieter Zeelie top the time sheets with an impressive fastest run of 38.220 seconds in his heavily modified Toyota MR2.

This put him within six-hundredths of a second of the current Modified Saloon car record of 38.129 seconds, set by Franco Scribante in his radical multi-winged Nissan R35 GT-R in 2022.

“There is definitely more time to be had, and it can only go better tomorrow,” Zeelie said.

Breathing down Zeelie’s neck on Saturday was Nissan R35 GT-R driver Reghard Roets, who came second on the timesheets with a time of 38.386 seconds. Sunday’s final Shootout will no doubt see the BB Motorsport driver put in a serious challenge for the win, which has been elusive since he entered the fray in 2022.

Scribante’s GT-R, meanwhile, was surprisingly off pace on Saturday, with his best time being 1.5 seconds short of his record, although he will no doubt be back with a vengeance on Sunday after some overnight tweaks to his car.

Rounding out the top five were Davie Joubert (Lotus Exige) and his brother Charl in a Lotus Elise.

But will any of these Modified Saloon Car drivers dip below the 38-second mark for the first time this year? Roets certainly seems to think so.

Meanwhile in the realm of silent speed, seven-time World Rallycross champion Johan Kristoffersson set the benchmark for electric vehicles with a time of 40.157 seconds in his title-winning Volkswagen Polo RX1e. This was 0.008 seconds faster than that three-time World Rally Champion Petter Solberg achieved in his petrol-powered WRC Polo R in 2023.

“I’m really enjoying being back in our championship-winning car, and although it’s not loud like most of the cars here, it’s pretty fast,” Kristoffersson said. “This is a very high-speed course with two very tricky sections at Turn 2 and Turn 3 that you have to get absolutely right for a quick time, but the twisty section at the top is basically flat-out the whole way.”

In the Single Seater and Sports Car category it was Robert Wolk that set the pace in his 2005 Gould GR55B, with a best qualifying time of 36.140 seconds.

In the Road Car and Supercar category, Clint Weston took charge on Saturday in the newly launched Mercedes-AMG GT 63 SE E Performance, managing a time of 43.356 seconds. Following close behind was BMW M4 driver Cristiano Verolini, with a time of 44.018 seconds.

The Simola Hillclimb is not just about supercars, however, with top-tier sponsor Suzuki entering a Jimny, Swift Sport and Swift GLX with motoring media behind the wheel.

The Japanese automaker is out to prove that affordable cars can provide a fun entry into motorsport events such as the Simola Hillclimb, as drivers Sean Nurse, Jeanette Kok-Kritzing and Ernest Page discover in the three respective Suzuki vehicles.

Sunday sees three final qualifying runs up the 1.9km hil, with these determining which top-three competitors in each class makes it to the Class Finals as well as the Top 10 Shootout in the late afternoon.

Watch the Simola Hillclimb live here:

Watch: 2025 Simola Hillclimb Saturday Incidents and Accidents

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