Let’s ask a question: what is the Toyota Racing Series for? So many race fans I talk to are adamant the glory days of the series were when it was swamped with Kiwi drivers and the series-within-a-series for the internationals sprinkled a handful of Aussies and a couple of European or Asian drivers into the mix.
Others think TRS, though the premier category, is a show pony. Overpriced is a common complaint. Elitist another.
Still others think in addition to running the main show and the 86 Championship, Toyota should – out of the munificence of their hearts – fund the promotion of the whole summer series. Er, actually, no. The pockets are not bottomless at 46 Roberts Line in balmy Palmie – nor the TRNZ HQ at Hampton Downs.
It seems only a few fasten on the actual purpose of the championship: to identify and support Kiwi drivers with the talent to go all the way. To give those drivers some essential wings and slicks experience in modern open-wheelers. Cars relevant to what they will use in Europe, run by proper teams with extensive international experience whose engineers and mechanics understand what is at stake for the budding stars they serve.
Finally, to push them up against the drivers they are likely to face when they head off to Europe, the UK or America to race.
The Championship is five rounds, fifteen races over five weekends and it delivers Kiwis and internationals into their 2019 race campaigns race-fit and ready to win. The final race each year is of course our Grand Prix, one of only two given full FIA sanction and recognition outside Formula One. The other, Macau, is the closing bookend of each year and is a major talent-fest.
As the 2019 Toyota Racing Series driver announcements loom closer, the international market is abuzz. The junior championships are all coming to an end, teams are deciding who they will support for the end of year Macau Grand Prix stand-alone event, and talent-spotters are working out how to score the best TRS team and engineer for their proteges.
Internationally, the FIA recognised the role played by TRS this year, confirming it would offer limited points toward a Superlicence, which is required in order to progress up through to Formula 1.
The simplified race category hierarchy set in place by Gerhard Berger evolves next year to meld F3 and GP3 with more aero, more power (V6 engine) and by default fewer drives than has been the case. The career ladder is now seen as Formula 4 – Formula 3 (new version) – Formula 2 and then for those who show greatest promise and who have the financial backing, the pinnacle: Formula 1.
New Zealand’s TRS, Euroformula Toyota in Spain, Formula 5 in other markets are regarded as junior categories, and though some like TRS offer Superlicence points that count toward the ladder they offer less points than the Formula 4 feeders.
A total of 17 ex-TRS drivers are racing in categories that offer Superlicence points; another five currently hold Superlicences or have the required 40 points to do so.
So among the seething mass of drivers white hot for an F1 career but far too young to tackle the ladder just yet, there are many who could benefit from a trip to New Zealand this summer. None of these have yet confirmed for TRS, but with F4 aero/slick/single seater experience under their belts they are at the level of development that could best benefit from the experience.
Aske Nygaard Bramming, Formula 4, 16yrs
2017 Danish Formula 5 Champion and current Danish Formula 4 driver Aske Nygaard Bramming has boosted the Crosslink/Kiwi Motorsport stable in USF4.
The team, which grew out of Victory Motor Racing in Nelson, leads the team championship heading into the final event will add the talented young Dane for the season finale at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, supporting the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix Oct. 19-21.
Crosslink/Kiwi Motorsport has grown rapidly from running one car in its first F4 foray to now running six and the closing event of 2018.
For Bramming and his backers, COTA is a race to test his possible entry into a full 2019 F4 U.S. season.
Starting his racing career in karting at just six years old, Bramming has won more than 100 trophies in his racing career. Bramming claimed the FIA-NEZ Nordic Champion in KFJ Karting and was also the first foreigner to step on the podium in the Swedish karting championship. In 2017, he started his single-seater career in the Danish Formula 5 Championship (previously Formula Ford), where he took the victory as Danish Champion.
Bramming is on a fast curve to the top, and has deliberately chosen not to spend more than one year in any category.
Keirn Jewiss, British F4, 16 yrs
British F4’s inaugural champion Lando Norris remains its most famous graduate, but its current championship leader Kiern Jewiss is showing remarkably similar progress. His whose form in his rookie single-seater season has already put him on Formula 1’s radar.
Both enjoyed great success in British and international karting, and entered Ginetta Junior as their first step into cars. Both ended up as the top rookie driver in the standings. Jewiss was arguably up against tougher opposition last year, with British F4 now well established and his rivals now winners in BRDC British Formula 3 and Porsche Carrera Cup GB.
Both drivers made the switch to British Formula 4, or MSA Formula as it was known when Norris drove, at the same point in their careers. Both had five wins at this point in the season. The difference: Jewiss leads the standings, Norris was only second at this point. Jewiss is managed by Martin Brundle’s MB Partners and races for Double R Racing.
Caio Collet, French F4, 16 yrs
Brazilian driver Collet clinched the French F4 Championship at Jerez in a dominant performance, taking the title with a round to spare and winning two of three races. He improved from tenth to sixth in the semi-reverse grid second race.
In an epic race weekend Collet, a protégé of Nicolas Todt, claimed pole position by half a second in qualifying over Adam Eteki, who only edged out series debutant and current South East Asia F4 leader Alessandro Ghiretti by 0.003s for a place on the front row.
In the first race, Collet gradually built an advantage of more than three seconds over Eteki, who lost second when he was given a drive-through penalty for exceeding track limits. As he served the penalty at the end of the final lap, he was classified last and a lap down.
Collet’s closet championship rival Arthur Leclerc, who missed the pre-event testing on Thursday, inherited second after moving up from fifth to third at the start, withstanding pressure from Ghiretti in the closing stages. In the reverse-grid race two, Collet went from 10th to sixth at the start, finishing between his nearest rivals De Pauw and Leclerc.
He then dominated the finale, with the victory just enough to secure him the title regardless of where his rivals finished behind him.
As champion, he receives an offer to join the Renault Sport Academy for 2019. So Caio, any plans for January?
Jack Doohan, British F4, 15 yrs
Famous name, plenty of expectation – but this nuggety 15 year old appears to have the right stuff. He’s racing British F4 alongside Keirn Jewiss and giving a good account of himself.
Doohan took his first major national title in 2015, winning the Australian Kart Champion KA Junior class. Like Bramming, Doohan has stepped from category to category with no pause and this is his first year leaping out of karting to full-size aero single seaters. Doohan won the British F4 Rookie Cup at the end of last month. He has been a busy bloke – as Marcus Armstrong did last year, Doohan has raced for Prema in the ADAC (German) F4 championship and also the Italian F4 Championship – finishing ninth in the latter.
Jack is turning 16 on January 20 which means he is still too young for TRS unless he gets a dispensation from his ASN (national governing body) to do so. That isn’t out of the question, it has been done before, but the FIA are known to frown on such jiggery-pokery.
Dakota Dickerson, USF4, 21 yrs
Currently leading the US Formula 4 Championship with two races remaining, Dakota Dickerson made waves in 2017 when he raced part of the F4 season, joining Kiwi Brendon Leitch at Kiwi Motorsport after the season had begun. Despite only contesting 11 races, Dickerson was third overall. Age snobs might dismiss a 21 year old six footer but Dickerson is deadly serious about racing and has Indycar in his sights.
Also noteworthy are the Team USA Scholarship winners, Colin Mullan and Jake Craig
The talent spotters
All through the racing year, there are shadowy figures attending race meetings, watching, talking. They know each other by their first names, greet each other like family, or sometimes like distant cousins they didn’t really want to meet. In a look at some of the potential talent likely to rise to the top this summer or through 2019, the influence of the talent spotters and team bosses cannot be understated.
Greg ‘Peewee’ Siddle has long been a towering presence in pitlane during TRS and brokered the deal to bring Lucas ‘Luggi’ Auer to New Zealand to race. Auer is the nephew of F1 great Gerhard Berger – looking back to what we know about the current career structure and who designed it, there’s not even six degrees of separation there.
Kiwi Murray Taylor helped finalise a deal for Josh Hill – son of British F1 Champion Damon – to race here. Hill did two seasons, with dad in tow for the first of those. Damon is now a self-described ‘professional amateur surfer’ and took time to explore our west coast surf breaks between rounds and after the series. Not even two degrees of separation there – Taylor ran Hill in Formula 3 in Britain in the category’s heyday.
Martin Brundle sent Honda F1 protégé Will Stevens down to TRS a few years ago. Stevens was rated a shoo-in for F1 until the Honda operation fell over. He raced once in F1 in 2014 for Caterham and then in 2015 for Manor Marussia – both teams now distant memories. Stevens has now turned his attention to prototype and endurance racing. Fortec was a regular visitor to these shores though the team has not been down-under recently.
Trevor Carlin has long seen TRS as a great finishing school for young talent under his team’s tutelage.
The Ferrari Driver Academy has been directing its proteges here since 2012.
Red Bull Racing has sent a steady stream of young talent here including Brit Callum Ilott, now a Prema driver alongside Mick Schumacher and our own Marcus Armstrong. And of course Prema’s involvement in the championship extends back to 2015 when the Stroll empire brought a 16 year old Lance here to win the championship. They have been a strong presence here since, bringing Marcus Armstrong back to race in TRS as he hones his craft.
Drivers, driver dads, team managers, talent spotters: all have reason to have our championship front-of-mind at this point in the season.
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