Dreams do come true, and Guy Botterill and Simon Vacy-Lyle will crew the new Wildcat Energy Drinks Toyota Etios R4. The announcement was made by the the Sponsors Wildcat Racing Team. Botterill and Vacy-Lyle have been rallying in the Zambian Championship since mid-year 2018 in an S2000 Auris in the Wildcat Energy Drinks livery. 2018 saw the duo participate in the two final events of the championship, winning the second event overall.
2019 saw Botterill take the win in Ndola ahead of Leroy Gomes in the Ford Fiesta R5, which was the first round of the 2019 Championship. Round 2 which was held in Lusaka in extremely sandy conditions, Botterill finished 2nd behind Gomez. Whilst the R4 was in Sabie for the Rally of South Africa, Botterill had the opportunity of getting behind the wheel of the Toyota R4 for a short run in the shakedown stage. “I drove it very respectfully, obviously Hergen had to do the entire Rally of South Africa with the car, but I was blown away by the handling of the car. It is amazingly twitchy and responsive, exactly as a rally car should be,” said Botterill after the short test run in Sabie.
Botterill said later that the brakes on the car were amazing and the car stops immediately when brakes are applied, and has a huge amount of torque and you can get into fifth gear and top speed in a matter of seconds. “The R4 is professionally built and is equipped with state-of-the art technology.
A lot has already been said about the R4 leading up to the Rally of South Africa regarding the technical specifications, it is left hand-drive and runs on an R5 drive train and gear ratio with a monster 1600 turbo-charged engine and four-wheel drive. It is the first R4 built, developed and tested by Oreca,” said Botterill.
“I could hardly even put my emotions into words, when the Wildcat Team came to me after the event and announced that they had purchased the R4 and that we would contest the remainder of the season in the new R4,” said an elated Botterill. “I am very honoured and grateful to the Wildcat Racing Team for this leap of faith in me, and for their continued support,” he added.
The Oreca team who serviced for Hergen on the event, will now restore and prepare the R4 so that it is now rally ready before Wildcat Energy Drinks takes delivery of the R4.
“I can hardly contain my excitement, and cannot wait for the R4 to come down to Durban where we will then start testing, and obviously I will have to get used to the left-hand drive, as well as the traction, handling and adjusting our own pace at our own time. It will also give me a good idea as the team can compare times in sectors on the stage we normally test on,” said Guy. Our first outing in the new Toyota Etios R4 Wildcat Energy Drinks beast will be in action the 3rd round of the Africa Rally Championship Twapia, Ndola Zambia in June.