2019 Toyota Racing Series

The 2019 Castrol Toyota Racing Series was the fifteenth running of the Toyota Racing Series, the premier open-wheel motorsport category held in New Zealand. The series consisted of fifteen races at five meetings. It began on 10 January at Highlands Motorsport Park, in Cromwell, and concluded on 10 February with the 64th running of the New Zealand Grand Prix, at Circuit Chris Amon in Feilding.

2019 Toyota Racing Series

Drivers' Champion:
Liam Lawson

Previous

2018

Next

2020

The championship, as well as the 2019 New Zealand Grand Prix was won by rookie Liam Lawson; who became the first New Zealander to win the championship since Nick Cassidy in 2013.

Champion Liam Lawson and runner-up Marcus Armstrong both took five wins apiece, whilst Cameron Das, FIA Formula 3 European Championship driver Lucas Auer, Esteban Muth, Brendon Leitch and Artem Petrov all had one race win each.

Teams and drivers

Team	No.	Driver	Status	Rounds
MTEC Motorsport	5	Petru Florescu		All
	11	Jackson Walls[1]	R	2–5
	36	Kazuto Kotaka[2]	R	All
	54	Calan Williams[3]		All
Giles Motorsport	7	Raoul Hyman[4]		All
	9	Petr Ptáček[5]	R	All
	16	Tommy Smith[6]	R	All
	21	Dev Gore[7]		All
	48	Ken Smith[8]		5
M2 Competition	8	Marcus Armstrong[9]		All
	10	Liam Lawson[10]	R	All
	12	Artem Petrov[11]		All
	22	Lucas Auer[12]		All
	28	Cameron Das[13]		All
	30	Esteban Muth[5]	R	All
Victory Motor Racing	66	Parker Locke[14]	R	All
	86	Brendon Leitch[15]		All

Race calendar

The calendar for the series was announced on 19 June 2018, and will be held over five successive weekends in January and February.^[16] Races 2 and 3 of the second round at Teretonga were postponed to due high winds and rescheduled. Race 2 will be run at Hampton Downs, and Race 3 qualifying and race will be run at Taupō.^[17]

Round		Circuit	Date	Pole Position	Fastest Lap	Winning Driver	Winning Team
1	R1	Highlands Motorsport Park Cromwell, Otago	12 January	Raoul Hyman	Liam Lawson	Liam Lawson	M2 Competition
	R2		13 January		Brendon Leitch	Brendon Leitch	Victory Motor Racing
	R3			Lucas Auer	Liam Lawson	Liam Lawson	M2 Competition
2	R1	Teretonga Park Invercargill, Southland	19 January	Liam Lawson	Marcus Armstrong	Marcus Armstrong	M2 Competition
	R2		20 January	Races 2 and 3 cancelled due to unsafe high wind conditions.[17]
	R3
3	R1	Hampton Downs Motorsport Park Hampton Downs, North Waikato	25 January	[N 1]	Cameron Das	Artem Petrov	M2 Competition
	R2		26 January	Marcus Armstrong	Marcus Armstrong	Marcus Armstrong	M2 Competition
	R3		27 January		Liam Lawson	Liam Lawson	M2 Competition
	R4			Marcus Armstrong	Artem Petrov	Marcus Armstrong	M2 Competition
4	R1	Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park Taupō, South Waikato	2 February	Liam Lawson	Liam Lawson	Liam Lawson	M2 Competition
	R2			Liam Lawson	Marcus Armstrong	Lucas Auer	M2 Competition
	R3		3 February		Marcus Armstrong	Esteban Muth	M2 Competition
	R4			Lucas Auer	Lucas Auer	Marcus Armstrong	M2 Competition
5	R1	Manfeild: Circuit Chris Amon Feilding, Manawatū District	9 February	Liam Lawson	Marcus Armstrong	Marcus Armstrong	M2 Competition
	R2		10 February		Cameron Das	Cameron Das	M2 Competition
	R3			Lucas Auer	Liam Lawson	Liam Lawson	M2 Competition

Championship standings

The series had introduced a new drivers' championship points system for the season. Drivers were awarded the same number of points for Races 1 & 3. Race 2 featured a reversed grid of the top 6 to 8 finishers from Race 1, and awarded reduced points to the top 15 finishers. Drivers must have completed 75% of the race distance and be running at the finish to score points.^[18][19]

Scoring system

Race (starting grid from qualifying)

Position	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th	10th	11th	12th	13th	14th	15th	16th	17th	18th	19th	20th
Points	35	31	27	24	22	20	18	16	14	12	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1

Reversed grid Race

Position	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th	10th	11th	12th	13th	14th	15th
Points	20	18	16	14	12	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1

Drivers' championship

Pos. Driver HIG TER HMP TAU MAN Points 1 Liam Lawson 1 5 1 2 C C 7 3 1 Ret 1 2 3 3 2 5 1 356 2 Marcus Armstrong 2 3 2 1 C C 10 1 4 1 3 NC 8 1 1 9 2 346 3 Lucas Auer 3 Ret 4 5 C C Ret 4 3 15 2 1 7 2 3 2 Ret 270 4 Raoul Hyman 4 2 3 11 C C 5 2 9 10 5 3 6 5 9 6 4 270 5 Esteban Muth 6 4 11 9 C C Ret 6 2 5 7 6 1 4 6 3 5 258 6 Brendon Leitch 5 1 9 8 C C 3 14 10 4 13 5 2 9 4 4 6 245 7 Cameron Das 9 6 7 4 C C Ret 7 5 3 15 10 5 8 7 1 Ret 205 8 Calan Williams 11 7 8 7 C C Ret 8 8 7 8 8 9 7 5 7 Ret 183 9 Artem Petrov 10 Ret 6 3 C C 1 Ret 7 2 4 4 4 Ret DNS DNS Ret 181 10 Kazuto Kotaka 8 Ret 10 6 C C 11 9 6 6 9 15 10 6 Ret 10 3 176 11 Petr Ptáček 7 8 5 12 C C 2 Ret 11 12 14 7 11 Ret Ret 12 Ret 123 12 Jackson Walls 13 C C 8 5 Ret 8 6 13 12 10 10 Ret Ret 110 13 Dev Gore 14 9 13 10 C C 4 13 14 14 12 9 14 12 11 Ret Ret 109 14 Tommy Smith 15 12 12 14 C C 12 11 12 9 11 14 13 13 14 8 Ret 101 15 Parker Locke 13 11 14 15 C C 9 12 15 11 16 12 15 Ret 12 11 7 100 16 Petru Florescu 12 10 Ret Ret C C 6 10 13 13 10 11 Ret 11 8 Ret DNS 98 17 Ken Smith 13 13 8 27 Pos. Driver HIG TER HMP TAU MAN Points

Colour Result Gold Winner Silver Second place Bronze Third place Green Points finish Blue Non-points finish Non-classified finish (NC) Purple Retired (Ret) Red Did not qualify (DNQ) Did not pre-qualify (DNPQ) Black Disqualified (DSQ) White Did not start (DNS) Withdrew (WD) Race cancelled (C) Blank Did not practice (DNP) Did not arrive (DNA) Excluded (EX) Bold – Pole Italics – Fastest Lap Rookie

Footnotes

1. Race 1 at Hampton Downs was the make-up of Race 2 from Teretonga, featuring a partially reversed grid of the top six finishers from the first race.

References

1. "Castrol Toyota Racing Series welcomes youngest gun". 13 December 2018. Retrieved 13 December 2018.
2. "Kotaka heading to New Zealand to begin 2019". 21 December 2018. Retrieved 21 December 2018.
3. "Williams set to begin 2019 European challenge with NZ warm up". 11 December 2018. Retrieved 11 December 2018.
4. "Hyman aiming to win in New Zealand to begin 2019". January 3, 2019. Retrieved January 3, 2019.
5. Allen, Peter (30 October 2018). "Italian F4 rookie champion Petr Ptacek to contest Toyota Racing Series". FormulaScout. Retrieved 31 October 2018.
6. "Smith to run Castrol Toyota Racing Series with Giles Motorsport". 27 November 2018. Retrieved 27 November 2018.
7. "Gore for New Zealand as 2019 Castrol Toyota Racing Series gathers pace". 5 December 2018. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
8. "King Kenny rides again". February 5, 2019. Retrieved February 5, 2019.
9. "Kiwi Armstrong aiming to win". 4 January 2019. Retrieved 4 January 2019.
10. "Lawson first Kiwi for Castrol Toyota Racing Series". 29 November 2018. Retrieved 29 November 2018.
11. "Petrov heads to New Zealand to begin 2019". Toyota New Zealand. 7 November 2018. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
12. "Auer heads to New Zealand to begin 2019 campaign". Toyota New Zealand. 22 December 2018. Retrieved 22 December 2018.
13. "Das a likely challenger in Castrol Toyota Racing Series". 15 November 2018. Retrieved 15 November 2018.
14. "Young US racer Locke's in New Zealand Camp". 14 November 2018. Retrieved 15 November 2018.
15. "Leitch back for title attempt in Castrol Toyota Racing Series". 19 December 2018. Retrieved 19 December 2018.
16. "Toyota Racing Series unveils 2019 schedule". Motorsport.com. 19 June 2018. Retrieved 4 July 2018.
17. Bradley, Charles (19 January 2019). "Toyota cancels further Teretonga TRS track activity on safety grounds". Motorsport.com. Motorsport Network.
18. "Castrol Toyota Racing Series Points Table". Retrieved 19 January 2019.
19. "The DownLow; The Official Magazine of the Castrol Toyota Racing Series; Issue 09". 15 January 2019. Retrieved 19 January 2019.

External links

• Official website of the Toyota Racing Series