Talk Motorsport is about opinions. In fact it’s the best sounding board the sport has, and facts and opinions flow freely together here when we get the mix just right. So here are five opinions about our single-seater prospects for the rest of this year and into 2021.
First up, Covid is over. The Government has won praise around the world for its management of the virus; now it must manage economic recovery. Supplementary opinion: they are doing okay so far.
Second: Toyota is head and shoulders, far and away the most prominent saviour of motor racing in this country. No argument. Yesterday’s re-commitment to TRS and the 86s by Alistair Davis was the most important media release of the year, bar none.
Third, rising racers from all around New Zealand must now stand up and commit to TRS if they want to have any hope of racing offshore. Why? Because no matter how much of a star you are in a reasonably priced car, TRS is where you will have your baptism of fire. It’s the only time you will get to see how good you really are before you commit a half million or more to the jump overseas.
Fourth, now more than ever if you are hoping to jump from karting into a TRS car you had better be very special. The FT 60 is an immensely technical thing to drive and the people you are up against are likely to have already sampled the Tatuus T318 platform in regional F3 overseas.
Fifth, now is the hour. With many European countries still under lockdown there are seats available that will be snapped up in the second half of this year. Traditionally the earliest commitments to the series have come from Kiwis – for example a few years ago Invercargill’s Jamie Conroy announced he would run at the Speed Show in July. As soon as we get a trans-Tasman bubble going the interest will come in from Aussie racers, and as long as Motorsport Australia allows the V8s to suffer such public conniptions as losing their TV deal and their major sponsor, you bet young Aussie drivers are thinking about TRS. That is, if they are good enough.
Huge congratulations to Billy Frazer on his Formula 1600 title, and to Ronan Murphy on being named top graduate from the MSNZ elite motorsport academy. These two really need to be looking hard at a TRS campaign. Part of that is getting the right backing behind them, and that team needs to have some sponsor procurement smarts. Many companies have taken a massive hit under lockdown, and we may well dip into recession this month or next. That only makes it more critically important for companies to get profile here and especially offshore.
No announcement yet from Speedworks or Toyota about the coming season, nor about the date clash between the Aussie V8s and the summer series.
Meanwhile, the role of TRS as a shaping-ground for raw talent is already well-known, well proven and needs little re-stating. It’s apparent in the grids of every major FIA race series and a lot more besides. Domestically, the Toyota 86 series might have been facing a re-stack among the premier championships with the advent of TCR, but not right now. TCR, dear reader, is MIA.
That means BNT NZ V8s is anointed to resume at premier tintop series provided they can get enough of the new TA2 cars brought here and sold and maybe bring a couple of ring-in Aussie or American drivers to rev up the publicity a bit.
But back to the open wheelers. When the Formula Scout website posted its predictions of drivers to watch in this weird year back in January, there were three ex-TRS names there: Guanyu Zhou, Robert Schwartzman and our own Marcus Armstrong.
In this year’s top twenty, the top three names are all ex TRS: Guanyu Zhou, Robert Schwartzman and Marcus Armstrong (main picture).
Armstrong heads back to Italy shortly to finish up preparation for the truncated FIA Formula 2 season, He says lockdown and Covid 19 have not had a huge impact on him, because he has been able to keep in touch with the Ferrari Driver Academy on the internet and having a gym setup at home has mean he has been able to keep up his fitness. And of course eSports and sim use have helped him stay in the racing groove, though he says driving the circuits on iRacing was most useful.
Likewise preparing for the compressed season are Liam Lawson (FIA Formula 3) and Nick Cassidy (looking to do an historic double in GT500 and Super Formula in Japan). Liam has a huge opportunity in front of him in ‘real’ F3 this year, and being in a top team and desired drive he can potentially now do what he needs to do.
In case it hasn’t already occurred to absolutely everyone, my final single-seater opinion is that these three are our 21st century iteration of the ‘Trio at the Top’: McLaren, Hulme and Amon.
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