The 2020 Castrol Toyota Racing Series was the sixteenth running of the Toyota Racing Series, the premier open-wheel motorsport category held in New Zealand. The series consisted of fifteen races at five meetings. It began on 17 January at Highlands Motorsport Park, in Cromwell, and concluded on 16 February with the 65th running of the New Zealand Grand Prix, at Circuit Chris Amon in Feilding.

The championship was won by Igor Fraga, who became the first Brazilian driver to win the title. Despite securing one extra victory with five wins compared to Fraga's four, defending champion and series returnee Liam Lawson would end the season as the runner-up. Yuki Tsunoda, Franco Colapinto, Tijmen van der Helm, Caio Collet, Jackson Walls, and Émilien Denner all secured one victory each.

Changes Technical In May 2019, the new Tatuus F.3 T-318, nicknamed "FT-60", chassis was revealed to be the chassis used from the 2020 season onwards. The change in chassis will also be accompanied by a new engine. The modified 1.8L Toyota four cylinder 2ZZ-GE production engines that were used since the series' inception will be replaced with a 2.0L turbocharged unit, increasing power output from 200bhp (150kW) to 270bhp (200kW). The top speed of the cars has increased to 250 km/h. The improved aerodynamics mean that the FT-60 is expected to generate around 25% more downforce that its predecessor. The six-speed Sadev paddle-shift sequential will remain.

Tyres In July 2019, it was announced that Hankook would become the series' tyre supplier starting from the 2020 season. The new contract stipulates that 1,600 tyres will be brought in for each season, with each driver receiving 17 sets of tyres, with the ability to add a further two sets of wet weather tyres if required. The tyre is of the same specification used in Formula Renault Eurocup and the W Series. Tyre dimensions will also be changed in conjunction with the changing of supplier; 230/560 for the fronts and 280/580 for the rear.

Teams and drivers All teams are based and registered in New Zealand.

Team No. DriverRounds M2 Competition 1 Liam LawsonAll 6 Ido CohenAll 17 Igor FragaAll 21 Émilien DennerAll 33 Yuki TsunodaAll 99 Rui AndradeAll Giles Motorsport 4 Henning EnqvistAll 26 Grégoire SaucyAll 44 Lirim ZendeliAll 49 Ken Smith 5 62 Chelsea Herbert1–2 Kiwi Motorsport 5 Spike KohlbeckerAll 7 Axel GnosAll 13 Tijmen van der Helm3–5 16 Amaury Cordeel1 32 José Blanco-Chock1–2 43 Franco ColapintoAll mtec Motorsport engineered by R-ace GP 9 Petr PtáčekAll 10 Oliver RasmussenAll 11 Jackson WallsAll 23 Caio ColletAll 88 Lucas PeterssonAllSource:

Team changes A joint three-year effort between MTEC Motorsport and France-based R-ace GP will see the latter organization take charge of the race engineering side of the operation starting from the 2020 season.

MP Motorsport and Kiwi Motorsport announced they would be joining forces by supplying engineers and mechanics.

Race calendar The 2020 calendar was announced on 30 April 2019 with each round to have three races, with qualifying taking place for both races one and three.

Round Circuit Date Pole position Fastest lap Winning driver Winning team 1 R1 Highlands Motorsport Park(Cromwell, Otago) 18 January Caio Collet Caio Collet Liam Lawson M2 Competition R2 19 January Oliver Rasmussen Yuki Tsunoda M2 Competition R3 Liam Lawson Liam Lawson Liam Lawson M2 Competition 2 R1 Teretonga Park(Invercargill, Southland) 25 January Igor Fraga Caio Collet Caio Collet mtec Motorsport engineered by R-ace GP R2 26 January Igor Fraga Émilien Denner M2 Competition R3 Jackson Walls Liam Lawson Liam Lawson M2 Competition 3 R1 Hampton Downs Motorsport Park(Hampton Downs, North Waikato) 1 February Petr Ptáček Liam Lawson Igor Fraga M2 Competition R2 2 February Liam Lawson Franco Colapinto Kiwi Motorsport R3 Igor Fraga Igor Fraga Igor Fraga M2 Competition 4 R1 Pukekohe Park Raceway(Pukekohe, Auckland Region) 8 February Liam Lawson Liam Lawson Liam Lawson M2 Competition R2 9 February Liam Lawson Jackson Walls mtec Motorsport engineered by R-ace GP R3 Liam Lawson Liam Lawson Liam Lawson M2 Competition 5 R1 Manfeild: Circuit Chris Amon(Feilding, Manawatū District) 15 February Franco Colapinto Igor Fraga Igor Fraga M2 Competition R2 16 February Franco Colapinto Tijmen van der Helm Kiwi Motorsport R3 Igor Fraga Franco Colapinto Igor Fraga M2 Competition

Championship standings

The series had introduced a new drivers' championship points system for the season. Drivers were awarded the same number of points for Races 1 & 3. Race 2 featured a reversed grid of the top 6 to 8 finishers from Race 1, and awarded reduced points to the top 15 finishers. Drivers must have completed 75% of the race distance and be running at the finish to score points.

Scoring system Race (starting grid from qualifying) Position 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th 13th 14th 15th 16th 17th 18th 19th 20th Points 35 31 27 24 22 20 18 16 14 12 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Reversed grid Race Position 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th 13th 14th 15th Points 20 18 16 14 12 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Drivers' championship Pos. Driver HIG TER HMP PUK MAN Points 1 Igor Fraga 2 7 3 3 6 2 1 4 1 2 5 8 1 4 1 362 2 Liam Lawson 1 5 1 6 3 1 2 2 Ret 1 4 1 2 5 3 356 3 Franco Colapinto 9 6 2 4 5 8 5 1 8 3 3 2 3 2 2 315 4 Yuki Tsunoda 5 1 4 11 7 3 7 16 3 4 7 4 9 7 6 257 5 Petr Ptáček 8 8 6 9 14 10 3 5 10 5 2 5 7 3 5 241 6 Grégoire Saucy 4 4 5 2 9 6 9 8 2 10 6 17 15 13 9 220 7 Caio Collet 7 Ret DNS 1 8 5 4 6 4 Ret 14 7 4 6 4 219 8 Lirim Zendeli 3 3 8 7 2 12 10 7 5 12 Ret 3 13 15 13 200 9 Ido Cohen 10 11 7 5 4 11 11 14 Ret 7 8 6 11 11 11 164 10 Jackson Walls 12 9 Ret Ret 15 4 8 9 12 6 1 10 10 9 8 160 11 Oliver Rasmussen 6 2 17 13 11 Ret 6 3 9 8 11 11 12 12 12 158 12 Lucas Petersson 16 13 10 12 12 7 16 11 7 Ret 12 13 8 8 10 127 13 Spike Kohlbecker 13 12 12 17 13 13 14 15 Ret 14 13 12 5 10 7 109 14 Tijmen van der Helm 17 17 11 11 10 9 6 1 Ret 84 15 Émilien Denner 11 10 9 8 1 Ret Ret 12 Ret Ret DNS DNS Ret 14 Ret 72 16 Rui Andrade 14 14 16 15 16 14 13 13 Ret 9 9 15 16 18 Ret 70 17 Henning Enqvist Ret 18 14 16 Ret 16 12 10 6 13 15 14 Ret 16 Ret 68 18 Axel Gnos 15 16 11 14 17 15 15 Ret Ret 15 16 16 14 17 14 60 19 José Blanco-Chock Ret 15 13 10 10 9 41 20 Chelsea Herbert 17 17 15 DNS WD WD 10 21 Ken Smith 17 19 15 10 — Amaury Cordeel WD WD WD — Pos. Driver HIG TER HMP PUK MAN PointsBold – Pole Italics – Fastest Lap

Footnotes

References