2013 Toyota Racing Series

The 2013 Toyota Racing Series was the ninth running of the Toyota Racing Series,[1] the premier motorsport category for open-wheel cars, held in New Zealand. The series, which consisted of five meetings of three races, began on 12 January at Teretonga Park in Invercargill, and ended on 10 February with the 58th running of the New Zealand Grand Prix, at Manfeild Autocourse in Feilding.

For the second consecutive season, New Zealand's Nick Cassidy won the championship title,[2] becoming the third driver to win multiple titles in the championship's history after Daniel Gaunt and Mitch Evans. Cassidy, driving for the M2 Competition team, claimed the title before the final race of the season at Manfeild, after a raft of post-race penalties were handed out after the second race. Among those was Cassidy's main championship rival, Giles Motorsport's Lucas Auer, who was given a 50-second penalty after he was adjudged to have forced Cassidy's team-mate Steijn Schothorst off the track, while passing him.[3]

Despite only winning two races during the season[4] – one at Hampton Downs as well as a second New Zealand Grand Prix victory – Cassidy was over 100 points clear in the final championship standings, having finished each of the fifteen races in the top eight. Second place in the standings was settled by six points; as three-time winner Alex Lynn (M2 Competition) moved ahead of Auer – a two-time winner – with a second-place finish in the New Zealand Grand Prix, to Auer's sixth place and Lynn prevailed 803 to 797.[4] Schothorst finished fourth in the championship,[4] taking one victory with a win in the first race at Manfeild, while the top five in the championship was rounded out by Bruno Bonifacio of Giles Motorsport, who won at Taupō and was the benefactor of Auer's penalty in the second Manfeild race. Three other drivers also won races during the season; Félix Serrallés won races at each of the first two meetings at Teretonga and Timaru, Pipo Derani also won a race at Teretonga, while Evans won two races on a one-off return to the series, at Hampton Downs, as he prepared for his GP2 Series campaign.

  1. ^ "Motul New Zealand supports 2013 Toyota Racing Series". Motornews. CRC Industries New Zealand Limited. 10 January 2013. Archived from the original on 9 February 2013. Retrieved 12 February 2013.
  2. ^ "Cassidy claims second TRS and New Zealand GP double". MotorsTV.com. Motors TV. 11 February 2013. Archived from the original on 9 March 2013. Retrieved 12 February 2013.
  3. ^ "Penalties award Nick Cassidy a second successive TRS Championship". Speedcafe NZ. Speedcafe. 10 February 2013. Archived from the original on 21 July 2013. Retrieved 12 February 2013.
  4. ^ a b c "Cassidy is double champion and takes Grand Prix win". Toyota Racing Series. Toyota Racing Management. 11 February 2013. Archived from the original on 22 February 2013. Retrieved 12 February 2013.