MOTORSPORT: Aussie stripped of win in NZ

Australian Thomas Randle remains a frontrunner in New Zealand's Toyota Racing Series for young, aspiring F1 drivers from around the world, but he was stripped of a lights-to-flag race victory at the weekend.

Randle, 20, of Melbourne, crossed the line first in the opening race of the three in the second round of the open-wheeler series at Invercargill's Teretonga circuit, but was subsequently penalised 10 seconds for jumping the start – which dropped him to seventh place.

That handed victory to the youngest driver in the field of 20, Dutch 16-year-old Richard Verschoor, who also won the rain-sodden final race of the round, the 20-lap 'Spirit of the Nation' feature, from fifth on the grid.

Along with second place to Brazilian Pedro Piquet in the middle race of the round, Verschoor now has 398 points in the series to second-placed Randle's 340.

Piquet, son of triple F1 world champion Nelson Piquet and brother of ex-F1 racer Nelson junior, is third on 307 points, with Indian Jehan Daruvala next on 287 – and nine races remaining over three more rounds.

Marcus Armstrong, a Ferrari junior academy driver, is the highest-placed of the New Zealanders in fifth with 265 points, followed by fellow Kiwis Taylor Cockerton on 263 and Brendon Leitch – a Victory Motor Racing teammate of Randle – on 232.

Randle, who also led Sunday's feature race before spinning and then recovering to third, was peeved at his penalty in the first Teretonga race.

"Richard [Verschoor, alongside him on the front row] got a better start than me, so I can't see how I jumped the start," Randle said.

Fellow Australian Harry Hayek and Daruvala also copped 10-second penalties in that race.

Verschoor, who only turned 16 last month, is a Red Bull junior development driver and is racing in NZ for the Giles Motorsport team of Kiwi former McLaren senior mechanic Steve Giles.

Verschoor has now been third, second, fourth, first, second and first in six races in the series.

Randle has been fourth, first, sixth, seventh [after losing his Teretonga win], third and third in those same six races.

While he remains the main challenger to Verschoor for the title, neither of the other Australians in the series, Sydney's Hayek and Melbourne youngster Luis Leeds, another Red Bull junior, have the points to be in the top 10 – although Leeds finished 10th in the second race in Invercargill.

Next weekend's round is at Tony Quinn's Hampton Downs circuit in the Waikato region, between Auckland and Hamilton on the North Island, with the following two at Taupo and Manfeild near Palmerston North.

Meanwhile, former Supercars driving standards observer Jason Bargwanna won the NZ Touring Car Championship round at Teretonga in his Toyota Camry. One race win and two second places gave Bargwanna more points for the round than Nissan Altima driver Nick Ross and Simon Evans in a Holden Commodore.

At the NZ Festival of Motorsport at Hampton Downs, 75-year-old Kenny Smith – in his 59th season of national competition – dominated the Formula 5000 Tasman Cup Revival Series in his Lola T332.

The festival was the first meeting on the newly-extended 3.8km circuit in the Waikato.

Next year's theme for the festival will be a celebration of Bathurst, which Quinn says has a special place in the hearts and minds of motor racing fans in both NZ and Australia.

'Unemployed' Montoya wins Race of Champions
Juan Pablo Montoya, without a full-time drive this year but contracted for a fifth Team Penske entry at the Indianapolis 500 in May, won the Race of Champions at Marlins Park in Miami at the weekend.

The Colombian former Formula 1, full-time IndyCar and NASCAR driver pipped Danish nine-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen in "straight sets" in the RoC finals, in which they drove rallycross cars and then KTM X-Bows.

Montoya made the finals via a controversial semi-final in buggies after which Brazilian Felipe Massa was handed a five-second penalty. Massa has come out of a brief F1 retirement to return to Williams, with Valtteri Bottas filling departed world champion Nico Rosberg's seat at Mercedes.

German Sebastian Vettel, the defending RoC champion from 2015, was bundled out of the individual competition on Saturday in defeats by IndyCar drivers Helio Castroneves and Alex Rossi, then extreme sports and rallycross star Travis Pastrana.

However, four-time F1 champion Vettel clinched the Nations Cup title single-handedly for Germany in the absence of countryman Pascal Wehrlein against American NASCAR brothers, Kyle and Kurt Busch.

Wehrlein was lucky to escape uninjured from a spectacular flip in a three-wheel Polaris the previous day, after a race against Massa.