Motorsport: Good news for young Kiwi drivers

Liam Lawson is one of the Kiwi drivers to have taken home big wins in the Toyota Racing Series. Photo / Photosport

The Covid-19 pandemic has hit motorsport hard, with only sim racing keeping competitors distracted. While virtual racing provides a bit of entertainment, it's solar systems away from the real thing.

Actual racing isn't the only concern, though, as a great number of drivers will be wondering if they will have a category to compete in once things are back to normal.

Toyota New Zealand has decided to get on the front foot and have announced, even while New Zealand is still at Level 2, that they will continue to promote motorsport and the Toyota Racing Series and the Toyota 86 championship will go ahead next year.

"We had no intention of pulling out [of motorsport] and we have invested 16 or 17 years in the Toyota Racing Series and five or six years in the 86 championship," Toyota NZ CEO Alistair Davis told the Herald.

'The reason I've come out publicly and said something, is that everyone else was in panic mode and I wanted to let them know to settle down, that we're going to be around and Toyota isn't going to pack up and hide under a rock.

"It was about giving people some certainty and confidence, and that we have a plan to be there next summer."

Toyota NZ had a vision 17 years ago that, to replicate the halcyon days of New Zealand drivers, with the likes of Bruce McLaren, Denny Hulme, Chris Amon and Mike Thackwell, New Zealand needed a world class feeder series.

Hence the creation of the TRS back in 2005 and the Toyota 86 series in 2013. The TRS in particular has been instrumental in helping a number of Kiwi youngsters climb the greasy pole of international motorsport and build a racing career.

Notable alumni include Brendon Hartley, Mitch Evans, Nick Cassidy, Earl Bamber, Liam Lawson, Marcus Armstrong and Shane van Gisbergen. Even after a decade and a half, Davies still has the same passion and drive to offer a platform for young Kiwi drivers to test themselves against the best young drivers from around the world.

"Toyota NZ has always had an ethos of investing in young people and taking the long view. I grew up going to the Tasman Series in the 1960s, and along with my fellow executives decided you had to build a platform for young kids to try their talent against the best in the world.

"So we came up the TRS as a way of doing that, and it's been proved to be extraordinarily successful with many Kiwis going on to do exceptionally well," said Davis.

Having decided on the strategy to continue to back both championships, the tactics are a little up in the air at the moment, with Davis acknowledging no one really knows what the motorsport landscape for physical racing will look like over the next few months.

"The final shape of how the series, in particular the TRS, will look - we won't know for some months yet. It will depend on when New Zealand will open its bubble to Australia, or even the rest of the world.

"If there are still travel restrictions, it'll also depend on whether international drivers will be willing to spend two weeks in quarantine to be able to go racing for five weeks. A number of circumstances will dictate the shape of the series.

"There is an option of only having local drivers, but the field would be much smaller probably. We are a number of months away from try to determine that."