2016 Toyota Racing Series

The 2016 Toyota Racing Series was the twelfth running of the Toyota Racing Series, the premier open-wheel motorsport category held in New Zealand. The series, which consisted of fifteen races at five meetings, began on 16 January at Ruapuna Park in Christchurch, and ended on 14 February with the 61st running of the New Zealand Grand Prix, at Manfeild Autocourse in Feilding.

As the first European driver to win the Toyota Racing Series, M2 Competition's Lando Norris wrapped up the championship with a race to spare, amassing six wins, eight poles, five fastest laps, and three round wins on his way to the title. Norris won a race at every meeting, taking a pair of victories in Taupō, while only finishing off the podium four times.

Force India protégé Jehan Daruvala took the runner-up spot in the championship, with one pole and three wins. Daruvala struggled in Ruapuna, but a strategic tyre gamble in a soggy Race 3 paid off, enabling him to take the Lady Wigram Trophy, despite starting 15th. Two further wins followed in Teretonga and Taupō, and solid top-8 finishes in each of the last nine races helped the Indian to second place overall.

New Zealand's Brendon Leitch finished the season in a strong third, despite only one win and three podiums. However, it was his amazing consistency that gave him such a good championship position, as he finished every race in the top 10. Leitch's 754-point haul is also the most points accrued by a Victory Motor Racing driver in team history.

Of the other drivers, Ferdinand Habsburg was top Giles Motorsport driver, after a strong campaign saw him take two wins. Pedro Piquet also took victory on two occasions, first in the second race at Teretonga, and again at Hampton Downs, where a superb run from pole saw him take the NZ Motor Cup. Piquet was often runaway leader Norris's main challenger, both on track and in the standings. Ferrari Driver Academy member Guanyu Zhou scored a breakthrough win in Hampton Downs and finished strongly throughout the duration of the series, although a disastrous final weekend compromised his attack. Rookie Taylor Cockerton was the best-placed ETEC Motorsport driver, finishing in ninth.

All teams were New Zealand-registered.

Team	No.	Driver	Status	Rounds
ETEC Motorsport	4	Theo Bean[1]	R	All
	11	Taylor Cockerton[2]	R	All
	13	Rodrigo Baptista[3]	R	All
	26	Timothé Buret[4]	R	All
M2 Competition	5	Pedro Piquet[5]		All
	6	Jehan Daruvala[6]	R	All
	10	Artem Markelov[7]		All
	15	Kami Laliberté[8]	R	All
	31	Lando Norris[9]	R	All
	33	Guanyu Zhou[10]	R	All
Giles Motorsport	17	Devlin DeFrancesco	R	All
	21	Nicolas Dapero	R	All
	23	Will Owen[11]	R	All
	40	James Munro[12]		All
	62	Ferdinand Habsburg[13]		All
	67	Antoni Ptak Jr.[14]	R	All
Victory Motor Racing	18	Julian Hanses[15]	R	All
	25	Bruno Baptista[16]	R	All
	49	Thomas Randle[17]		5
	86	Brendon Leitch[18]		All

The calendar for the series was announced on 23 June 2015, and will be held over five successive weekends in January and February.^[19] As opposed to the previous year, all rounds will be triple-headers.^[20]

Round		Date	Circuit	Pole position	Fastest lap	Winning driver	Winning team	Round winner(s)	Report
1	R1	16 January	Ruapuna Park, Christchurch	Lando Norris	Lando Norris	Ferdinand Habsburg	Giles Motorsport	Ferdinand Habsburg	Report
	R2	17 January			Lando Norris	Lando Norris	M2 Competition
	R3			Lando Norris	Pedro Piquet	Jehan Daruvala	M2 Competition
2	R1	23 January	Teretonga Park, Invercargill	Lando Norris	Jehan Daruvala	Jehan Daruvala	M2 Competition	Lando Norris	Report
	R2	24 January			Lando Norris	Pedro Piquet	M2 Competition
	R3			Lando Norris	Lando Norris	Lando Norris	M2 Competition
3	R1	30 January	Hampton Downs Motorsport Park, Waikato	Lando Norris	Jehan Daruvala	Lando Norris	M2 Competition	Pedro Piquet	Report
	R2	31 January			Guanyu Zhou	Guanyu Zhou	M2 Competition
	R3			Pedro Piquet	Ferdinand Habsburg	Pedro Piquet	M2 Competition
4	R1	6 February	Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park, Taupō	Lando Norris	Pedro Piquet	Lando Norris	M2 Competition	Lando Norris	Report
	R2	7 February			Jehan Daruvala	Jehan Daruvala	M2 Competition
	R3			Lando Norris	Lando Norris	Lando Norris	M2 Competition
5	R1	13 February	Manfeild Autocourse, Feilding	Jehan Daruvala	James Munro	Ferdinand Habsburg	Giles Motorsport	Lando Norris	Report
	R2	14 February			Pedro Piquet	Brendon Leitch	Victory Motor Racing
	R3			Lando Norris	Ferdinand Habsburg	Lando Norris	M2 Competition

In order for a driver to score championship points, they have to complete at least 75% of the race winner's distance, and be running at the race's completion. All races counted towards the final championship standings.

Scoring system

Pos. Driver RUA TER HMP TAU MAN Points 1 Lando Norris 3 1 9 2 2 1 1 17 6 1 2 1 3 4 1 924 2 Jehan Daruvala 8 13 1 1 5 17 2 4 3 5 1 8 4 2 7 789 3 Brendon Leitch 6 9 5 5 4 2 5 2 9 7 4 5 5 1 10 754 4 Ferdinand Habsburg 1 7 2 13 8 4 6 9 8 6 12 4 1 7 3 727 5 Pedro Piquet 7 2 Ret 4 1 10 3 3 1 2 5 2 Ret 8 15 710 6 Guanyu Zhou 5 3 4 7 6 8 7 1 4 4 3 3 Ret 10 17 685 7 James Munro 4 Ret 14 15 10 9 4 11 2 3 6 11 2 6 4 621 8 Artem Markelov 2 4 3 6 3 3 12 Ret 5 12 7 Ret Ret 12 2 588 9 Taylor Cockerton 9 11 11 11 12 11 10 8 10 9 9 6 6 5 6 545 10 Devlin DeFrancesco 14 10 6 Ret 14 5 11 13 12 8 11 10 7 9 13 465 11 Bruno Baptista Ret 8 8 Ret 13 6 9 7 Ret 10 8 7 9 11 9 443 12 Antoni Ptak Jr. 13 5 12 3 Ret 15 8 5 11 Ret Ret 14 8 3 Ret 426 13 Kami Laliberté Ret 14 7 Ret 16 7 17 6 7 11 Ret 9 14 14 8 386 14 Will Owen 11 12 Ret 10 9 13 16 10 Ret 13 10 12 15 17 14 357 15 Timothé Buret 10 6 15 14 11 Ret 13 15 13 16 Ret 13 10 13 18 349 16 Rodrigo Baptista Ret 16 13 9 18 16 15 14 14 17 Ret Ret 11 16 11 286 17 Nicolas Dapero 12 DSQ 10 8 7 18 19 Ret Ret 14 Ret Ret Ret 15 16 238 18 Theo Bean 16 17 Ret 12 17 14 18 12 Ret 15 13 15 Ret 18 Ret 238 19 Julian Hanses 15 15 Ret Ret 15 12 14 16 Ret Ret Ret 16 13 19 12 226 20 Thomas Randle 12 20 5 89 Pos. Driver RUA TER HMP TAU MAN Points

Colour Result Gold Winner Silver Second place Bronze Third place Green Points finish Blue Non-points finish Non-classified finish (NC) Purple Retired (Ret) Red Did not qualify (DNQ) Did not pre-qualify (DNPQ) Black Disqualified (DSQ) White Did not start (DNS) Withdrew (WD) Race cancelled (C) Blank Did not practice (DNP) Did not arrive (DNA) Excluded (EX) Bold – Pole Italics – Fastest Lap Rookie

• Official website of the Toyota Racing Series