The 62nd New Zealand Grand Prix takes place at the Manfeild Circuit Chris Amon facility over the weekend of February 10th, 11th and 12th and features one of the best – and busiest – schedules at the flagship New Zealand motor racing event for several years.
The Castrol Toyota Racing Series once again concludes at the event with the final race of the racers’ five weekend, five circuit, fifteen race 2017 schedule the Grand Prix itself – which will blast off around 3.30pm on Sunday. It is, of course, the first GP of the 2017 calendar year given that New Zealand is one of only two countries in the world outside of Formula One permitted to use the phrase ‘Grand Prix’ for its premier single seater race.
Running as it does in the New Zealand summer months – which are the ‘off-season’ winter months in the Northern hemisphere – some of the finest young drivers in the world are competing in the Castrol Toyota Racing Series hoping to sharpen their skills for their own summer seasons and attract the attention of manufacturers and major teams.
Three current Formula One teams are represented this coming weekend. Ferrari are here in the form of one of their current Academy drivers, Kiwi Marcus Armstrong. Red Bull Racing are represented by their latest up and coming superstar Richard Verschoor and Sahara Force India fields Jehan Daruvala, a youngster who caught the team’s eye after winning a racing competition in India called ‘One In a Billion’.
Alongside those three are 17 other up and coming young drivers aiming for careers in the higher echelons of world motorsport. All have a chance and many have impressed during this championship with flashes of speed and occasional brilliance. Aussie Thomas Randle particularly has shown blinding pace in recent races, and heads to the Grand Prix meeting vying for the title with Red Bull’s Vershoor.
With testing on Friday, two qualifying sessions and a race on Saturday, then a Sunday morning race as a build-up to the main event on Sunday afternoon there is ample opportunity for the fans to see these stars of tomorrow in New Zealand’s fastest single seaters duke it out to join a long and illustrious list of former Grand Prix winners.
Such a line-up of superstars needs a strong supporting cast and this year the Grand Prix at Manfeild exceeds expectations. The BNT New Zealand Touring Cars has produced some epic races of late, with former Bathurst winner Jason Bargwanna and his Richards Toyota Camry breaking the stranglehold of champion Simon Evans in the SMEG Holden in spectacular style in the two recent South Island rounds. With plenty of momentum behind him, Bargwanna could be tough to beat this weekend. Talk to any of the drivers, team owners or mechanics however, and all are expecting the racing to be as tight as it has been at any point of the season.
Other championship classes on the schedule for the weekend at Mighty Manfeild include the Toyota 86 Championship, the PORTERGROUP V8 Utes, Pirelli Porsche and Formula 1600, the latter particularly worth a look as the winner of that series books themselves a trip to the USA to compete for a major junior driver prize that could eventually take them to big time Indycar racing. All of these classes have had one thing in common over the course of the current racing season and that has been the quality of the on track action. Without exception, each of the Speed Works Motorsport Championship meetings they have been part of have produced some scintillating action and it has seen spectators coming back to the country’s race tracks to enjoy the show.
Adding some historical flavour to the meeting are the ever popular ENZED Central Muscle Cars, arguably the best field of this type of racing car in the world today. Popular wherever they go (and they have even been to Australia this past season), there’s something for everyone in this series for modified classics. Completing the line-up for the GP weekend are the speed and engineering demons of TRADEZONE GTRNZ. It’s basically an ‘anything goes’ series with GT1/2 the faster class and GT3/4 predominantly made up of home-built and run specials of all shapes and sizes.
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