Motorsport: Teenager joins illustrious Lady Wigram Trophy winners

A past Lady Wigram Trophy winner Daniel Gaunt.

Canadian Lance Stroll became the latest driver to join the illustrious list of names already engraved on the Lady Wigram Trophy as one of the country's leading motor racing titles was up for grabs at the opening round of the 2015 Toyota Racing Series.

The category was back at Ruapuna yesterday after a six-year absence and the drivers and teams were vying for the Lady Wigram Trophy.

Stroll joins drivers such as Stirling Moss, Jack Brabham, Bruce McLaren, Jim Clark and Jackie Stewart on the trophy. More recent winners include Kiwis Daniel Gaunt and Earl Bamber.

The 16-year-old was the standout driver of the weekend winning the feature 20-lap race, Saturday's 15-lap race and crossed the line fourth in race two yesterday morning. Indian driver Arjun Maini followed Stroll home in the Lady Wigram Trophy race with GP2 racer Artem Markelov rounding out the podium.

Stroll took advantage of pacesetter Sam McLeod's early error while leading and a tangle behind him to leap out to an 8sec lead. Kiwi James Munro closed the gap to around 4sec but came unstuck on the infield and spun leaving the Canadian to bring the car home untroubled.

"I can't think of a better way to start off 2015 and I'm extremely happy with this weekend's results," said Stroll.

"The team did a great job to give me the best race car out there this weekend. All I had to do was keep my head down and do the work."

The Ferrari Development Academy pilot brought a smile to his dad's face at the opening round of the series when he crossed the line to claim the bragging rights in the first race of the year.

Lawrence Stroll has put aside running his business empire, which includes Tommy Hilfiger and Michael Kors, to follow his son on a five-week, 15-race championship throughout New Zealand.

"It's always nice to start the year off with a win," said Stroll senior.

"It's great to be in New Zealand and see a great race - it's all good."

The younger Stroll was pleased to get a win so early on in the championship and said, "Once I got in front and built a bit of a gap I began to pace myself and didn't have to push too much and could save the tyres. We came home with the win and that's all that matters so I'm happy."

Stefan Riener's joy at finishing second was short lived after he was pinged for jumping the start and handed a 10-second penalty, which dropped him to eighth. This promoted Maini to second with Aussie Thomas Randle in third.

Race two ended in confusion with a number of protests and infringements having to be sorted through. When the dust had settled, Frenchman Brandon Maisano took the win from Irishman Charlie Eastwood and Austrian Ferdinand Habsburg.

The race was more reminiscent of TRS contests of previous years with cars flying off left, right and centre.

There were a number of safety car incursions and eventually the race was red-flagged with two laps to go.

"It is important to win my first race especially here [Ruapuna] where it is quite difficult," said Maisano. "It is important to get the lead early, build a gap and control the race, which I did at the beginning. It was a good race."

The Kiwis in the field - James Munro, Damon and Brendon Leitch and Jamie Conroy - had a hard day with the best result of a pair of ninths going to the Leitch brothers.