Championship race heats up at Manfeild

Heading into the Dan Higgins Trophy race at Manfeild, Toyota Racing Series leader Andy Knight is preparing to defend his championship points lead at a track he says complements his driving style.


After the four race meetings and twelve races so far in the 2008 Championship, Knight looks back on a rollercoaster ride to the Championship's mid-point and his 699 point tally with justifiable satisfaction.


He has a clutch of pole positions and race wins to his credit and has inscribed his name on two of the most prestigious trophies in New Zealand motorsport: the New Zealand Motor Cup and the New Zealand Grand Prix.


Though Knight has experienced the sudden-death "tough love" of qualifying that has at times dumped him onto the fourth row of the grid; and had a wild ride into the Armco during a race start tangle at Taupo, he's quietly optimistic about the coming rounds, starting with the Dan Higgins race meeting at Manfeild on February 15-17.


“I’m looking forward to returning to Manfeild after winning the New Zealand Grand Prix there last month. We've been fast there the last three years and there is no reason we can't be fast there again. It would be good to take a couple of race wins and the round win. If we do that it means no-one is getting closer in the championship.”


Knight says as always, the all-too-brief qualifying sessions will be the key.


“If you get pole and know what you are doing you should be able to go on and win. The pole-sitter normally wins these races."


After four rounds and with only the Taupo start-line tangle marring his points pursuit, Knight says he’s pleased with progress so far.


"The championship hasn't gone too badly so far. It is a shame we got caught up in that crash in the last race at Taupo - it would have been nice to still have that 100 point lead that we had there instead of the fifty-eight point lead we have now. However any lead is good. We couldn't have had a better start than we got at Pukekohe - we did everything we could've done there."


Second-placed Ben Harford and third placed Earl Bamber are close behind and just 200 points separate Knight from fourth-placed Nic Jordan.


With 75 points available from each race win and 225 on offer over the course of a weekend Knight can not assume his lead in the Championship is safe. He must make the most of every qualifying session and every race start.


Wellington’s Ben Harford, a TRS veteran who has 641 points and is Knight’s closest rival for the title, says the first half of the season has been “interesting”. He scored the Denny Hulme Trophy at a hot and dusty A1GP meeting at Taupo in a finely judged drive that put him well ahead of the chasing pack and able to conserve his tyres and fuel on the way to the chequered flag, but spun away the lead in the previous race at that meeting.


“It’s definitely the closest season in the four years I’ve raced in TRS. What’s become apparent is just how important qualifying is now with the new format. It is vital if you want a good points haul.”


What seem at the time to be minor errors can later assume greater significance.


“I look back on the two retirements at Pukekohe and Manfeild and my spin at Taupo as the low points of our season, and personally I see the Lady Wigram race as perhaps my greatest disappointment.”


Harford says his high points so far this season have been his pole positions and race wins and in particular winning the Denny Hulme Memorial Trophy.


“It’s also been great to really gel with my team and get to know the guys better. They are a fantastic bunch and it has been awesome getting to know them all. It’s been said before but it’s absolutely true: without a great crew, a driver just can’t do the job.”


Now, says Harford, his thoughts are on closing the gap to Andy Knight.


“It seems Andy, Earl and myself have cleared a little way from the rest of the pack championship-wise and it’s going to be really interesting to see who from the young guns is going to start putting themselves up there. My team-mate Dominic Storey is showing himself to be fast, as well as others such as Michael Burdett and Nic Jordan. All I want to do is win - this requires consistency and speed. The crucial point will be finishing every race from here on.”


Wanganui rising star Earl Bamber is the only other driver to have cracked the 600 point milestone with four rounds complete. Bamber had his best result of the series at Ruapuna in early January when he battled Ben Harford wheel to wheel for the Lady Wigram Trophy, becoming at 17 the youngest-ever winner of that historic title. With 618 points, he is well within reach of the outright points lead.


Apart from a “horror” round at Pukekohe, Bamber says he’s had a great season and is looking forward to returning to Manfeild. 


“Here we are back for my “home” race again. We had really good car speed here last time round for the Grand Prix so hopefully we can continue where we left off. Steven Giles and International Motorsport have done a fantastic job all season so this round’s looking very promising.”


Meanwhile one driver looking to show well at Manfeild has been forced to face reality and surrender any championship aspirations due to missing early rounds of the 2008 series.


Local driver Sam MacNeill was third overall after the first round in November but missed two rounds of the championship, putting him well down the points order. Returning to the series has been a challenging process, but MacNeill says the A1GP round at Taupo gave him a chance to regain competitive form.


“Taupo was a good weekend for me in that by the end of the weekend I was up to speed again, but given the small amount of practice we got it meant I was struggling all weekend from poor qualifying.”


He says this round, on his home track, is “about getting up the front” and gaining valuable track time with a view firmly set on next year’s TRS.


“My goal is to be fighting at the front during the Manfeild weekend. Realistically, the championship is gone now having missed two rounds so I just need to get out there and try and win some races and focus my outright points chase aspirations on next year.”


The lone female driver in this year’s series is Christina Orr of Whakatane. Though she has shown the pace to be on the podium in past seasons, Orr says she has had “one of those years” in 2008.


“We have had a lot of things go wrong with the car. At Manfeild we broke 5th gear and dog rings in qualifying so for the rest of the weekend we were playing catch up. I was pleased to come away with a good finish in the Grand Prix, seventh overall.”


At Taupo the car developed a chronic misfire in qualifying, the engine dropping onto two cylinders in qualifying.


“That’s dangerous, it put us back in the pack where all the accidents happen. Matt Halliday took out Daynom Templeman and myself in a huge hit that made the TV coverage. In the Denny Hulme though we posted third fastest time.


Orr says she is heading for Manfeild “just hoping for better luck and aiming for a top three placing”.


This year's Toyota Racing Series has attracted some of the sport's rising stars with 20 high quality entries across the first four rounds.



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Series front-runners Knight, Harford and Bamber are all prime examples of the Championship's invaluable role: to identify and nurture New Zealand's rising international racing talent.


Already, the series has seen its graduates go far. Brendon Hartley, the youngest-ever race winner in TRS history and its most successful graduate to date is heading into a 2008 Formula Three season with the leading Carlin Motorsport team. Double TRS champion Daniel Gaunt is racing in the Porsche GT3 series and his 2007 International Motorsport TRS team-mate, Shane van Gisbergen, has a Stone Brothers V8 Supercar drive lined up for this year.


Motorsport commentators including former F1 driver Chris Amon say these results and more show the importance of TRS as a true incubator of new driving talent.


Now in its fourth season as New Zealand's premier single-seater category, the 2008 Toyota Racing Series TRS has gone "green" this year with a switch to E85 ethanol biofuel.


It is the first category in New Zealand motorsport to do so, and this year's series has included the first bio-fuelled Grand Prix in the global history of motorsport – a race won by Andy Knight, the current series leader.