A successful season of national championship circuit racing comes to an end at Zwartkops Raceway west of Pretoria this weekend (November 25 and 26) for the three-car Ferodo Racing team of Lee Thompson, Kelvin van der Linde and Gennaro Bonafede.

Thompson, who turned 32 on November 10, has already wrapped up the Masters category of the Engen Volkswagen Cup in his Ferodo VW Polo after winning 12 of the 16 races run so far. While he will be looking to extend his domination of the over-27 category, he will also be looking to support his younger team-mate and 15-year-old racing prodigy Van der Linde in his quest to finish in the top three in the main competition in his first season of senior national championship circuit racing.

Van der Linde has impressed with remarkably mature performances in his Ferodo VW Polo and is currently third in the point standings, 80 behind already crowned champion Devin Robertson and 28 behind second-placed Kosie Weyers. With a total of 32 points on offer in the two remaining races with bonus points for qualifying, the grade nine Dainfern College schoolboy has a mathematical chance of overtaking Weyers in second place.

However, while he will be doing his best to record his first win of the season on a circuit he knows like the back of his hand, his focus is more likely to be on staying ahead of fourth-placed Kyle Barnes, who is 13 points behind him, and retaining his top-three position.

Bonafede, who debuted a Golf 6 version of his Ferodo VW GTi at the previous Zwartkops meeting three weeks ago, has now completed his third year industrial engineering exams at Pretoria University and will be concentrating all his energies on retaining his third place in class T of the Bridgestone Production Car Championship.

"We were a little bit down on power on debut and there were a few expected teething problems, but we've done quite a bit of development work and some testing since and I'm confident we will give a good account of ourselves this weekend," said the ever-positive 21-year-old from Dainfern in Gauteng.

With a total of 47 points on offer in the four sprint races with bonus points for qualifying and fastest lap of the race, Bonafede is 62 behind current leader Gary Formato (250 points) and 42 short of second-placed Graeme Nathan (VW Golf 6 GTi). He will be keeping a wary eye on fourth-placed Shaun Duminy (Ford Focus) who is 19 points in arrears.

Like younger team-mate Van der Linde, he would like nothing better than to finish the season with a win or two to add to the single victory he enjoyed in round three at the Aldo Scribante Raceway in Port Elizabeth.

Long time supporters of motor sport in South Africa and, in recent years, of exciting young talent, Federal-Mogul's Ferodo brake pad and Champion spark plug brands are world famous and used by top competitors in all branches of motor sport. They are official suppliers to both the Engen Volkswagen Cup series and the Formula Volkswagen single-seater championship. The factory Volkswagen Polo team, winners of the last six national rally championships, rely on Champion spark plugs.