Taupo TRS: Norris wins Denny Hulme Memorial Trophy
Toyota Racing Series championship leader Lando Norris took a comfortable victory in the third and final race of the Taupo round, securing the Denny Hulme Memorial Trophy.
Lando Norris
Bruce Jenkins
The win was Norris' fifth in the campaign, enabling him to extend his lead over nearest rival Pedro Piquet to 86 points - with 225 available in the Manfield finale next week.
The first green flag stretch of the final Taupo race lasted just a few seconds and was over when James Munro clashed with Artem Markelov into Turn 1 - with the former having to pit for a nosecone change and the latter retiring on the spot.
Norris had stayed out front at the line, and would control the subsequent restart, only for the race to be suspended again.
This time the stoppage required red flags, as Rodrigo Baptista was stranded at Turn 5 and his car needing to be lifted away.
When the race got going again, it finally settled into a rhythm as the leading duo of Norris and Piquet escaped out front and Guan Yu Zhou ran as best of the rest, having passed Brendon Leitch at the earlier restart.
Having challenged Norris for victory earlier in the weekend, Piquet stayed within 1.5sec of the Brit for much of the distance in this race, but dropped off significantly in the final five laps, and had to settle for second.
Zhou rounded off yet another M2 Competition 1-2-3, with Ferdinand Habsburg taking fourth off Leitch, having started 10th after a grid penalty.
Taylor Cockerton was sixth, ahead of Bruno Baptista and Jehan Daruvala, with Canadian duo Kami Laliberte and Devlin DeFrancesco rounding out the top 10.
Pos. | Driver | Team | Time/Delay |
1 | Lando Norris | M2 | 31:37.586 |
2 | Pedro Piquet | M2 | 3.453 |
3 | Guan Yu Zhou | M2 | 12.304 |
4 | Ferdinand Habsburg | Giles | 15.516 |
5 | Brendon Leitch | Victory | 19.369 |
6 | Taylor Cockerton | ETEC | 19.881 |
7 | Bruno Baptista | Victory | 20.277 |
8 | Jehan Daruvala | M2 | 20.864 |
9 | Kami Laliberte | M2 | 23.165 |
10 | Devlin DeFrancesco | Giles | 25.759 |
11 | James Munro | Giles | 26.066 |
12 | Will Owen | Giles | 27.126 |
13 | Timothe Buret | ETEC | 28.830 |
14 | Antoni Ptak | Giles | 30.200 |
15 | Theo Bean | ETEC | 30.624 |
16 | Julian Hanses | Victory | 1 Lap |
Ret | Rodrigo Baptista | ETEC | |
Ret | Nicolas Dapero | Giles | |
Ret | Artem Markelov | M2 |
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