The second round of the 2020 Castrol Toyota Racing Series was held over the weekend at Teretonga Park in Invercargill. Talkmotorsport was there and caught some of the action from the weekend.
Teretonga by the numbers
The weather gods played ball and provided some great weather all weekend. Congrats must go to Speed Works for a well run meeting and to Volt TV for some great TV coverage on Sky Sport (feedback says it was world class).
Traditionally Teretonga has always pulled a big crowd for its major summer motor racing weekend. You know if the crowd will be a good one by the number of setups (mini grand stands) that are there on Friday.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t. It was an average crowd for the weekend boosted by good numbers coming through the gates late Saturday for four hours of D1NZ drifting in the early evening. With the no show of the BNT V8s (Southland love V8s) and the questionable 2019 decision not to run the Toyota Racing Series races on the Sunday (12 months ago) due to ‘forecasted’ winds that never eventuated, the lower attendance was expected. Having a race meeting at Timaru International Raceway the same weekend must also have impacted on competitor, marshal and spectator numbers.
More Formula Ford/1600 carnage
We always knew that there would be two separate races for the New Zealand Formula Ford Championship and the South Island Formula 1600 Series at Teretonga. Hence, we saw a number of national competitors from the North Island decide to compete in both. This gave them six races for the weekend. Billy Frazer even chose to compete at Highlands last weekend in the fifth SI F1600 round, giving him nine races over two weekends. His argument was that there wasn’t much point in coming south to do 3 x 8-lap national races at Teretonga.
Somehow, someone in MotorSport New Zealand, at a very late hour, decided that this was against the regulations and decided to stop this happening on Friday (24 Jan) as it gave these competitors undue advantage. Maybe it gave them a disadvantage as Ronan Murphy found out in the first SI F1600 race on Saturday when he took the right corner off his car.
A bulletin was issued during Formula 1600 practice declaring that national Formula Ford competitors could not participate in both. After much protest (even from within MSNZ) this was rescinded allowing competitors to carry on with racing. There will be some major explaining to be done within the MSNZ offices this week. Hence to issue the bulletin on Friday was an unnecessary stirring of the pot. (For more detail click here).
In the end we saw nine cars take to the track for the NZFF races and 25 cars for the SI F1600. Someone asked the question in the media room why doesn’t common sense prevail and they all race together? Exactly!
Elite Academy drivers to the fore
On a brighter note, six Elite Motorsport Academy drivers were competing in the Formula Ford/1600 categories at Teretonga Park in the weekend – Kaleb Ngatoa, Billy Frazer, Zac Stichbury, Thomas Boniface, Ronan Murphy and Bailey Paterson. For those other young Formula Ford competitors here’s the link to apply for the 2020 Academy Click here
South Island Porsche Series
2017/18 NZ F1600 champion Callum Hedge made the switch to tin-tops last season winning the Toyota TR86 championship. This year he has moved into a very quick Porsche 991 and has won 5/6 races in the South Island Porsche Series over the last two weekends (Highlands and Teretonga). He’s after a full time race-driving career but has deliberately chosen not to head into TRS.
Close Racing in TR86
The TR86 series continues to produce some close racing. Two drivers to watch are:
1/ Ryan Wood, who is fresh out of karting and was nowhere at the first round at Pukekohe before Christmas. He started to show form at Highlands Motorsport Park last weekend and was mixing it up this weekend with a 7th, 5th and 7th. He’s now eighth overall on the points table.
2/ The other is Campbell Stewart who was good at Highlands but is now showing he is a top three contender but unfortunately probably out of the running for the championship. Over the weekend he stood on the podium twice (2 x 3rd) and a fifth. He’s now fourth overall.
Toyota Racing Series – those to watch heading north
The TRS cars are the latest and greatest FIA F3 Regional Series type in the world and they are racing on our shores. We are very fortunate to have some of the best talent in the world and the racing at Teretonga was superb.
Heading to Hampton Downs and the last three Castrol Toyota Racing Series rounds we picked a couple of drivers from each team to look out for. They may not necessarily be the quickest but are already showing potential.
mtec Motorsport engineered by R-Ace GP expect Polish driver Petr Ptacek to be on the podium. It’s his second time in NZ and he started conservatively at Highlands last weekend. At Teretonga he hung around the top 10 finishing 9,11,10. He was rated before the series started so let’s not be surprised if he pulls out a scorcher!
Also expected to improve is Oliver Rasmussen who finished 13, 12 and 18th over the weekend. However he managed to trip over Race 2 winner Oliver Denner near the end of race 3!
Kiwi Motorsport believe Spike Kohlbecker will continue to shine. He’s still coming to grips with the car but was much more comfortable at Teretonga, a track he is familiar with having competed their 12 months ago in the NZ F1600 Championship. He is familiar with the next three tracks having tested a FT50 at Hampton Downs and competed in Formula 1600 at both Pukekohe and Manfeild. He showed in Formula 1600 that when he is comfortable, he will be very quick so once he gets confident with the FT60, then watch out.
Kiwi Motorsport are hoping to retain Jose Blanco for the last three rounds. He was a late minute ‘ring-in’ for the first two rounds for Dutch driver Tijmen van der Helm who turns 16 years-old this week and will compete with Kiwi Motorsport in the last three rounds. With their fourth driver Belgium’s Amaury Cordeel now out of the series, there is a seat available for Blanco.
While Yuki Tsunoda won the second race at Highlands and was on the podium for the feature race at Teretonga, M2 Competition believe we haven’t seen the best from the Japanese driver. What we observed at the end of Teretonga was the body language of an out-of-sorts driver.
The other M2 driver to watch is Emilien Denner. An eighth in race one on Saturday gave him pole position for race two (reverse top eight marble draw) and he led every lap for his first win. A cool head under pressure. In the final race Rasmussen made a mess of a passing attempt on Denner and sent both off at turn one into the gravel.
Giles Motorsport have two top drivers who will continue to threaten for podiums and race wins. Lirim Zendeli and Gregoire Saucy both stood on the podium at Teretonga so expect more heading north.
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