Piquet adds his name to famous trophy

Pedro Piquet has put another famous name on the NZ Motor Trophy after winning the main race at the third round of the Toyota Racing Series at Hampton Downs on Sunday afternoon. First presented in 1921, the solid silver trophy used to be awarded to the winner of the New Zealand Grand Prix and has the names of no less than five different Formula One World Champions on it.

Piquet’s father Nelson, himself a triple world champion looked even more pleased than his son at Pedro’s success, perhaps recognising the significance of the trophy’s history. The result has taken Piquet up to second on the points table after starting the weekend seventh. “I had a very good start,” said Piquet. “Getting pole position in qualifying yesterday was really important.”

Piquet is now confidently looking towards the remaining rounds of the TRS at Taupo and Manfeild. “Each day I’ve been getting better in the car,” said Piquet.

Once he had established a lead, Piquet managed the gap back to second placed James Munro from Christchurch, who had made a great start from third on the grid. “Jehan (Daruvala who finished third) piled on the pressure,” said Munro, “but I managed to hold him off.” After a frustrating start to the series, Munro had a good weekend to convert the speed he has shown into good results. “The car has been great this weekend. It’s nice to get a result for all the team’s hard work.”

The most excitement came after the race was stopped to retrieve crashed cars and with two laps to go the restart saw the field go into the first corner four abreast, amazingly they all survived. Earlier in the day Guanyu Zhou had won the reverse grid race from Invercargill’s Brendon Leitch who started the main event from 12th on the grid and managed to advance to tenth, but dropped to fifth on the closely contested points table.

Series leader Lando Norris was supposed to start from the front row of the grid in the main race but was penalised eight places for an incident in the preliminary race and had to be content with a sixth place finish.

 

Race 3

1^st – No. 5, Pedro Piquet, BRA, M2 Competition, 19 laps, 21:18.077

2^nd – No. 40, James Munro, NZL, Giles Motorsport, gap 1.711

3^rd – No. 6, Jehan Daruvala*, IND, M2 Competition, gap 2.353

4^th – No. 33, Guan Yu Zhou*, CHN, M2 Competition, gap 3.113

5^th – No. 10, Artem Markelov, RUS, M2 Competition, gap 3.922

6^th – No. 31, Lando Norris*, GBR, M2 Competition, gap 5.105

7^th – No. 15, Kami Laliberté, CAN, M2 Competition, gap 6.278

8^th – No. 62, Ferdinand Habsburg, AUT, Giles Motorsport, gap 7.354

9^th – No. 86, Brendon Leitch, NZL, Victory Motor Racing, gap 8.651

10^th – No. 11, Taylor Cockerton*, NZL, ETEC Motorsport, gap 10.354

11^th – No. 67, Antoni Ptak*, POL, Giles Motorsport, gap 10.923

12^th – No. 17, Devlin DeFrancesco, CAN, Giles Motorsport, gap 11.640

13^th – No. 26, Timothe Buret*, FRA, ETEC Motorsport, gap 13.071

14^th – No. 13, Rodrigo Baptista, BRA, ETEC Motorsport, gap 14.661

 

Not Classified

No. 25, Bruno Baptista*, BRA, Victory Motor Racing, lap 17

No. 4, Theo Bean*, USA, ETEC Motorsport, lap 17

No. 23, William Owen*, USA, Giles Motorsport, lap 17

No. 21, Nicolas Dapero, ARG, Giles Motorsport, lap 17

No. 18, Julian Hanses*, GER, Victory Motor Racing, lap 12

 

Fastest Lap

No. 62, Ferdinand Habsburg, AUT, Giles Motorsport, lap 13, 1:00.397, 139.682 mph

 

• Rookie

 

Points

1st, Lando Norris, 518 points

2nd, Pedro Piquet, 466 points

3rd, Jehan Daruvala, 463 points

4th, Guan Yu Zhou, 460 points

5th, Brendon Leitch, 449 points

6th, Ferdinand Habsburg/Artem Markelov, 439 points