In the 25 year history of the Volkswagen Rally, Toyota has triumphed on no less than 13 occasions, against the four victories for Audi, four for hosts VW, and one each for Nissan and Daewoo (with no event held in 1994/5), marking the Eastern Cape as one of the most successful for SA’s top selling motor vehicle manufacturer.

Toyota leads the way with a record 16 Manufacturer’s Championship titles, followed by Datsun/Nissan (9 titles) and Volkswagen on eight.

Toyota currently leads the 2008 Manufacturer’s Championship with three rounds remaining on the calendar.

Cronjé snatched the rally lead on stage 6, winning it by 15 seconds, while rivals Hergen Fekken/Pierre Arries hit trouble, ending Friday’s seven stage, action-filled day a scant 19 seconds ahead of the chasing pack.

In a polished performance on Saturday, Cronjé rocketed through the opening 32km stage 26 seconds faster than the defending champions Jan Habig/Douglas Judd could manage in their BP VW Polo, recording their fourth stage win of the event.

Johnny Gemmell and Peter Marsh, driving the second S2000 Castrol Toyota RunX, stopped to repair a tie rod,, swapping it with a spare carried within the car after having been involved in an accident.

The repair took an agonizing 10 minutes and plummeted the pair to 26th overall on Friday evening.

The duo fought back over Saturday’s six remaining stages to claim 9th place and 12 valuable championship points.

Nicholas Ryan/Schalk van Heerden, 7th overnight, crashed heavily in stage 8 on Saturday morning, leaving Van Heerden with a broken leg and the S2000 Philips/Jonnesway Toyota RunX written off.

The 6th round of Sasol SA Rally Championship is the Osram Rally, to be held in the mountains around Barkly East on 15 and 16 August.