2020 Toyota Racing Series

The 2020 Castrol Toyota Racing Series was the sixteenth 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 17 January at Highlands Motorsport Park, in Cromwell, and concluded on 16 February with the 65th running of the New Zealand Grand Prix, at Circuit Chris Amon in Feilding.

Changes

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Technical

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In May 2019, the new Tatuus F.3 T-318, nicknamed "FT-60", chassis was revealed to be the chassis used from the 2020 season onwards. The change in chassis will also be accompanied by a new engine. The modified 1.8L Toyota four cylinder 2ZZ-GE production engines that were used since the series' inception will be replaced with a 2.0L turbocharged unit, increasing power output from 200bhp (150kW) to 270bhp (200kW). The top speed of the cars has increased to 250 km/h. The improved aerodynamics mean that the FT-60 is expected to generate around 25% more downforce that its predecessor. The six-speed Sadev paddle-shift sequential will remain.[1]

Tyres

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In July 2019, it was announced that Hankook Tire would become the series' tyre supplier starting from the 2020 season. The new contract stipulates that 1,600 tyres will be brought in for each season, with each driver receiving 17 sets of tyres, with the ability to add a further two sets of wet weather tyres if required. The tyre is of the same specification used in Formula Renault Eurocup and the W Series. Tyre dimensions will also be changed in conjunction with the changing of supplier; 230/560 for the fronts and 280/580 for the rear.[2]

Teams and drivers

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All teams are based and registered in New Zealand.

Team No. Driver Rounds
M2 Competition 1   Liam Lawson All
6   Ido Cohen All
17   Igor Fraga All
21   Émilien Denner All
33   Yuki Tsunoda All
99   Rui Andrade All
Giles Motorsport 4   Henning Enqvist All
26   Grégoire Saucy All
44   Lirim Zendeli All
49   Ken Smith 5
62   Chelsea Herbert 1–2
Kiwi Motorsport 5   Spike Kohlbecker All
7   Axel Gnos All
13   Tijmen van der Helm 3–5
16   Amaury Cordeel 1
32   José Blanco 1–2
43   Franco Colapinto All
mtec Motorsport engineered by R-ace GP[3] 9   Petr Ptáček All
10   Oliver Rasmussen All
11   Jackson Walls All
23   Caio Collet All
88   Lucas Petersson All
Source:[4]

Team changes

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A joint three-year effort between MTEC Motorsport and France-based R-ace GP will see the latter organization take charge of the race engineering side of the operation starting from the 2020 season.[3]

MP Motorsport and Kiwi Motorsport announced they would be joining forces by supplying engineers and mechanics. [5]

Race calendar

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The 2020 calendar was announced on 30 April 2019 with each round to have three races, with qualifying taking place for both races one and three.[6]

Round Circuit Date Pole Position Fastest Lap Winning Driver Winning Team
1 R1 Highlands Motorsport Park
(Cromwell, Otago)
18 January   Caio Collet   Caio Collet   Liam Lawson[note 1] M2 Competition
R2 19 January   Oliver Rasmussen   Yuki Tsunoda M2 Competition
R3   Liam Lawson   Liam Lawson   Liam Lawson M2 Competition
2 R1 Teretonga Park
(Invercargill, Southland)
25 January   Igor Fraga   Caio Collet   Caio Collet mtec Motorsport engineered by R-ace GP
R2 26 January   Igor Fraga   Émilien Denner M2 Competition
R3   Jackson Walls   Liam Lawson   Liam Lawson M2 Competition
3 R1 Hampton Downs Motorsport Park
(Hampton Downs, North Waikato)
1 February   Petr Ptáček   Liam Lawson   Igor Fraga M2 Competition
R2 2 February   Liam Lawson   Franco Colapinto Kiwi Motorsport
R3   Igor Fraga   Igor Fraga   Igor Fraga M2 Competition
4 R1 Pukekohe Park Raceway
(Pukekohe, Auckland Region)
8 February   Liam Lawson   Liam Lawson   Liam Lawson M2 Competition
R2 9 February   Liam Lawson   Jackson Walls mtec Motorsport engineered by R-ace GP
R3   Liam Lawson   Liam Lawson   Liam Lawson M2 Competition
5 R1 Manfeild: Circuit Chris Amon
(Feilding, Manawatū District)
15 February   Franco Colapinto   Igor Fraga   Igor Fraga M2 Competition
R2 16 February   Franco Colapinto   Tijmen van der Helm Kiwi Motorsport
R3   Igor Fraga   Franco Colapinto   Igor Fraga M2 Competition

Championship standings

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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.[7][8]

Scoring system

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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

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Pos. Driver HIG TER HMP PUK MAN Points
1   Igor Fraga 2 7 3 3 6 2 1 4 1 2 5 8 1 4 1 362
2   Liam Lawson 1 5 1 6 3 1 2 2 Ret 1 4 1 2 5 3 356
3   Franco Colapinto 9 6 2 4 5 8 5 1 8 3 3 2 3 2 2 315
4   Yuki Tsunoda 5 1 4 11 7 3 7 16 3 4 7 4 9 7 6 257
5   Petr Ptáček 8 8 6 9 14 10 3 5 10 5 2 5 7 3 5 241
6   Grégoire Saucy 4 4 5 2 9 6 9 8 2 10 6 17 15 13 9 220
7   Caio Collet 7 Ret DNS 1 8 5 4 6 4 Ret 14 7 4 6 4 219
8   Lirim Zendeli 3 3 8 7 2 12 10 7 5 12 Ret 3 13 15 13 200
9   Ido Cohen 10 11 7 5 4 11 11 14 Ret 7 8 6 11 11 11 164
10   Jackson Walls 12 9 Ret Ret 15 4 8 9 12 6 1 10 10 9 8 160
11   Oliver Rasmussen 6 2 17 13 11 Ret 6 3 9 8 11 11 12 12 12 158
12   Lucas Petersson 16 13 10 12 12 7 16 11 7 Ret 12 13 8 8 10 127
13   Spike Kohlbecker 13 12 12 17 13 13 14 15 Ret 14 13 12 5 10 7 109
14   Tijmen van der Helm 17 17 11 11 10 9 6 1 Ret 84
15   Émilien Denner 11 10 9 8 1 Ret Ret 12 Ret Ret DNS DNS Ret 14 Ret 72
16   Rui Andrade 14 14 16 15 16 14 13 13 Ret 9 9 15 16 18 Ret 70
17   Henning Enqvist Ret 18 14 16 Ret 16 12 10 6 13 15 14 Ret 16 Ret 68
18   Axel Gnos 15 16 11 14 17 15 15 Ret Ret 15 16 16 14 17 14 60
19   José Blanco Ret 15 13 10 10 9 41
20   Chelsea Herbert 17 17 15 DNS WD WD 10
21   Ken Smith 17 19 15 10
  Amaury Cordeel WD WD WD
Pos. Driver HIG TER HMP PUK 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

Footnotes

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  1. ^ Caio Collet originally won the race, but received a 5-second time penalty for performing a practice start on the formation lap.

References

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  1. ^ "New FT-60 will put NZ firmly on global motorsport map". 29 May 2019. Retrieved 2 August 2019.
  2. ^ "Hankook Tire confirmed as Castrol Toyota Racing Series tyre supplier". 22 July 2019. Retrieved 2 August 2019.
  3. ^ a b "mtec and R-Ace GP join forces to create formidable TRS challenge". 30 July 2019. Retrieved 2 August 2019.
  4. ^ "2020 Season Drivers". Archived from the original on 2019-12-20.
  5. ^ "Watch out for Kiwi Motorsport this summer in TRS". 6 November 2019.
  6. ^ "SPEED WORKS EVENTS PULL BIG PUNCHES WITH PROVISIONAL CALENDAR". 30 April 2019. Archived from the original on 2 August 2019. Retrieved 2 August 2019.
  7. ^ "Castrol Toyota Racing Series Points Table". Retrieved 19 January 2019.
  8. ^ "The DownLow; The Official Magazine of the Castrol Toyota Racing Series; Issue 09". 15 January 2019. Retrieved 19 January 2019.
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