TRS rookie Auer grabs pole but crashes out on first lap
Future stars show their pedigree at rainswept track
Quick New Zealanders close the gap.

British racer Josh Hill has opened his 2012 Toyota Racing Series championship with a win in the first race – but another international racer was left wondering what might have been after a dominating qualifying timesheets.

Hill – son of 1996 Formula One World Champion Damon Hill and grandson of World Champion Graham Hill – put in a well judged drive and kept his head in chaotic conditions in the opening laps, scoring a valuable first win for his efforts.

But young Austrian racing driver Lucas Auer had sped to the front of the timesheets in qualifying for the first round of the 2012 Toyota Racing Series at Teretonga near Invercargill this weekend.

Auer, the nephew of former Ferrari Formula One driver Gerhard Berger, is one of a record 15 international entries in the premier single-seater series and has been consistently fast over two days of testing in the buildup to the first of three races for the category.

In treacherously wet conditions during qualifying, Auer posted a fast 1:01.416 lap of the 2.62 km track. Second fastest was British driver Jordan King, with Italian Raffaele Marciello – a member of the elite Ferrari Driver Academy – third.

Josh Hill was fourth fastest and the top New Zealand driver was Auckland’s Jono Lester, fifth fastest.

Rain throughout the qualifying session made the track surface slick, sending a number of drivers off into the safety gravel traps alongside the track.

Auer had continued his early form, mastering the conditions without putting his car at risk. In the race, however, a brief rain shower as the cars started proved Auer’s undoing just three corners into the race: he spun and Raffaele Marciello hit his car, forcing a re-start.

Josh Hill led at the re-start from fellow BRDC Rising Star driver Jordan King. Hill survived a three-car tussle for turn one and went on to win the race ahead of Southland racer Damon Leitch and Auckland’s Jono Lester. The two other cars involved in the squeeze going down the front straight and into the first turn were Hannes van Asseldonk and Jordan King. Both went off the track and were unable to rejoin.

Leitch had made the most of the confusion after the original start and carved cleanly through to be fifth at the re-start, then worked his way up to Hill as the first lap continued. Likewise Jono Lester had re-started third and hung onto Hill through that first lap. When van Asseldonk and King went off he found himself in a battle for second place, an all-Kiwi tussle with Leitch.

The race was placed under the control of the safety car and then finished early when the cars of van Asseldonk and King could not be recovered before the scheduled end of the race.

The podium at the end was Hill, Leitch and Lester, the finish of the race providing an interesting historical resonance: Southland’s Leitch family are passionate about motor racing and Damon Leitch was named after Josh Hill’s father Damon.

The Toyota Racing Series is back on track at 11.44 am tomorrow for the weekend’s feature race, the 20 lap Spirit of a Nation.

The first round of the series concludes with a further race over 16 laps on Sunday afternoon.

14 January, 2012
For further information please contact:
Barrie Thomlinson
Telephone: (09) 270 2759
Mobile: 021 984 639

Murray Taylor
Telephone: (09) 445 0209
Mobile: 027 294 7930

Website: www.toyotaracing.co.nz
FaceBook: ToyotaRacingSeries
Twitter: ToyotaRacingNZ
Results: http://www.toyotaracing.co.nz/calendar-results
Driver profiles: http://www.toyotaracing.co.nz/2011-season-drivers

2012 International Toyota Racing Series
Round 1: 12-15 January Teretonga Park, Invercargill Spirit of a Nation Cup
Round 2: 19-22 January Timaru Raceway, Timaru Timaru Herald Trophy
Round 3: 26-29 January Taupo Motorsport Park Denny Hulme Memorial Trophy
Round 4: 2-5 February Hampton Downs, Auckland New Zealand Motor Cup
Round 5: 9-12 February Manfeild, Feilding New Zealand Grand Prix
(Dan Higgins Trophy and Dorothy Smith Memorial Cup)