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The 2013 Toyota Racing Series was the ninth running of the Toyota Racing Series, the premier motorsport category for open-wheel cars, held in New Zealand. The series, which consisted of five meetings of three races, began on 12 January at Teretonga Park in Invercargill, and ended on 10 February with the 58th running of the New Zealand Grand Prix, at Manfeild Autocourse in Feilding. For the second consecutive season, New Zealand's Nick Cassidy won the championship title, becoming the third driver to win multiple titles in the championship's history after Daniel Gaunt and Mitch Evans. Cassidy, driving for the M2 Competition team, claimed the title before the final race of the season at Manfeild, after a raft of post-race penalties were handed out after the second race. Among those was Cassidy's main championship rival, Giles Motorsport's Lucas Auer, who was given a 50-second penalty after he was adjudged to have forced Cassidy's team-mate Steijn Schothorst off the track, while passing him. Despite only winning two races during the season – one at Hampton Downs as well as a second New Zealand Grand Prix victory – Cassidy was over 100 points clear in the final championship standings, having finished each of the fifteen races in the top eight. Second place in the standings was settled by six points; as three-time winner Alex Lynn (M2 Competition) moved ahead of Auer – a two-time winner – with a second-place finish in the New Zealand Grand Prix, to Auer's sixth place and Lynn prevailed 803 to 797.〔 Schothorst finished fourth in the championship,〔 taking one victory with a win in the first race at Manfeild, while the top five in the championship was rounded out by Bruno Bonifacio of Giles Motorsport, who won at Taupo and was the benefactor of Auer's penalty in the second Manfeild race. Three other drivers also won races during the season; Félix Serrallés won races at each of the first two meetings at Teretonga and Timaru, Pipo Derani also won a race at Teretonga, while Evans won two races on a one-off return to the series, at Hampton Downs, as he prepared for his GP2 Series campaign. ==Teams and drivers== From the 2012 season, six drivers returned for a full-time campaign during the 2013 season. Defending champion Nick Cassidy moved teams for his bid for a second consecutive title; having won the championship in 2012 with Giles Motorsport, Cassidy moved to the M2 Competition squad for 2013, as part of a six-car team. Alex Lynn – who was a race-winner in the series in 2011 – also returned to New Zealand with M2, where they were joined by British Formula 3 rookie class champion Spike Goddard, British Formula Ford competitor Ryan Cullen, Formula Renault Eurocup racer Steijn Schothorst, and Norwegian karter Dennis Olsen,〔 who was competing in single-seaters for the first time. Cullen left the series after the second round of the season at Timaru, while Pieter Schothorst, brother of Steijn, joined the team for the New Zealand Grand Prix. Despite losing Cassidy to M2 Competition, Giles Motorsport entered a five-car squad for the Series. Lucas Auer, Bruno Bonifacio, and Félix Serrallés all remained with the team after finishing sixth, eighth and tenth respectively, in the 2012 championship. Serrallés' team-mate from British Formula 3, Pipo Derani, was also part of the team,〔 while the team was completed by Nicholas Latifi, a race-winner in the final Italian Formula Three campaign. Two-time series champion Mitch Evans competed in a sixth car for the team at Hampton Downs, as he elected to compete in a one-off meeting in order to maintain his preparations for a 2013 campaign in the GP2 Series; his car was then filled for the New Zealand Grand Prix by Ken Smith, who maintained his record of competing in every New Zealand Grand Prix that the category had been eligible for, and his 48th New Zealand Grand Prix in total. ETEC Motorsport also entered a five-car team for the 2013 season, just as they had done in 2012. Tanart Sathienthirakul was the team's only non-rookie driver, as he moved from the M2 Competition team for his second series campaign.〔 He was joined in the team by European F3 Open driver Tatiana Calderón, the series' only female driver during the 2013 campaign.〔 Akash Nandy, who contested part-campaigns in both Formula Pilota China and the JK Racing Asia Series in 2012, was also a member of the team – and the youngest driver of all, in the series – while the team was completed by Singaporean karter Andrew Tang, and British driver Jann Mardenborough,〔 who was continuing his progression up the motorsport ladder since winning the 2011 Nissan GT Academy for budding racing drivers, implementing Sony's ''Gran Turismo'' racing series. Victory Motor Racing was the only other team to enter the 2013 Toyota Racing Series, entering two cars for the majority of the season. Damon Leitch, who finished third in the championship in 2012, returned with the team, where he was joined by Michael Scott, who graduated from the national Formula First championship in New Zealand. The team entered a third car for the final two meetings of the season, which was filled by Italian driver Ignazio D'Agosto, who like the Schothorst brothers, had competed in the Formula Renault Eurocup and the Formula Renault NEC in 2012. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「2013 Toyota Racing Series」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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