As with 2013, British GT Academy winner Jann Mardenborough has opted to start his 2014 season in New Zealand’s top circuit racing event, the Toyota Racing Series. But with a year’s experience in F3 under his belt now he’s making better returns and has just snatched his first ever open-wheel win.
TRS packs 15 races into just 5 weeks of action and so a third of the season has already passed. Mardenborough, who finished TRS 2013 as the top rookie in 10th overall, put in a sterling showing at the first round in Teratonga with a second place in the second race, but he’s gone one better in the second round.
Jann was already topping the timesheets in practice sessions at Timaru, setting an unofficial lap record by 0.6s, but could only finish an incident-packed first race in 8th place. He benefitted from a favourable reverse grid draw to start race 2 on pole and made it count – setting the lap record while taking a lights-to-flag victory to put himself on the top step in a wings & slicks car for the first time in his career.
Race 3 later that afternoon saw Jann back up his win with another 2nd place, to make 3 podium finishes in his 6 races so far this season. These results put him 2nd overall in the driver’s championship, just 8pt behind Estonian driver Martin Rump.
This latest success marks a season where GT Academy drivers have scored a podium in every race weekend they’ve entered, following the 1st & 3rd result at Dubai – and with 41 podium finishes in all competitions in 2013, we can be assured that more is yet to come.
If you wish to follow the remainder of the Toyota Racing Series in 2014, the next rounds are scheduled as follows:
- Round 3 – 23rd-26th Jan 2014, Highlands Motorsport Park, Cromwell
- Round 4 – 30th Jan – 2nd Feb 2014, Hampton Downs
- Round 5 – 6th-9th Feb 2014, Manfeild, Feilding
For those of you unable to get to the events, there’s an active Twitter feed for the series along with live timing that includes support events.
Images courtesy of Toyota Racing New Zealand.
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