Have helmet, will race
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By Scott MacLean
The motorsport desk at Sportsfreak Towers is one of the smaller ones but is manned by some addicted petrolheads. It all gets underway in earnest over the next weeks, and while the acclaimed Formula One docuseries Drive to Survive won’t – barring events – feature any Kiwi’s we’re going to be well represented across the globe in 2023.
Starting in Australia, Shane van Gisbergen will look to make it a hat-trick of titles in the flagship V8 Supercars after his record-breaking 2022 season at the wheel of his Red Bull Holden. He’ll face plenty of competition from the Aussies, but also a whole new challenge as the series debuts its new Gen3 model and the Chevrolet Camaro replaces the iconic Commodore. ‘The Giz’ is joined in the “main game” by Andre Heimgartner in his sixth season in the class and second with Brad Jones Racing in a Camaro, while 20-year-old Aucklander Matt Payne joins the series with Grove Racing in a Ford Mustang as one of three rookies in the field after finishing third overall in the Super2 category last year.
Former regulars Fabian Coulthard and Richie Stanaway will appear later in the year as co-drivers for the Sandown and Bathurst endurance events with Stanaway picking up the plum gig to co-drive with van Gisbergen after impressing in last year’s wildcard entry with legend Greg Murphy. Chris Pither drops out of the full-time series but should be in-line for a co-driver spot as teams begin to fill those.
In other categories across the ditch youngsters Ryan Wood will race in Super 2 and Matthew McCutcheon in Super3, and the promising duo of Callum Hedge and Kaleb Ngatoa are looking put together returns for the Porsche Carrera Cup and the open-wheel S5000 series respectively after each making their mark in those categories last year.
Alongside van Gisbergen, the biggest names in Kiwi motorsport are the two Scott’s – Dixon and McLaughlin – who will go head-to-head in the IndyCar series in North America. Dixon’s pedigree in the series is almost unmatched as he begins his 21st season with Chip Ganassi Racing and goes on the hunt for a seventh championship to draw level with American legend A.J. Foyt (Dixon is also second in career race wins with 53 to Foyt’s 67) after finishing third in the standings last year with two wins to his credit. Two-time Supercars champion McLaughlin seems to have quickly mastered the American open-wheeler scene, finishing the season one place behind Dixon in fourth but with three wins, all on road courses, including last seasons opener in Florida. Driving for the high-profile Team Penske and teammate of defending champion – Aussie Will Power – he’s expected to be a contender for the title this season. There’s also rumours that McLaughlin may also pilot a Penske car in some NASCAR road course events and could also return to Australia in a wildcard entry for the Bathurst 1000.
The two will be joined on a part-time basis by former Ferrari Academy driver Marcus Armstrong who leaves the Europe-based Formula 2 series after three seasons to join Dixon at Ganassi Racing for the IndyCar road and street events. Armstrong won three times in F2 last year, but only finished 13th in the standings (remarkably as he had for the prior two as well) largely to reliability issues.
The coming force of NZ Motorsport though is Armstrong’s contemporary in Formula 2, the ridiculously talented Liam Lawson. Lawson has also left Formula 2 after three seasons and a 2022 season where he finished third in the standings with four race wins to head for the land of the Rising Sun where he’ll take on the ultra-competitive Japanese SuperFormula Championship while continuing as a test and reserve driver for the Red Bull and Toro Rosso F1 teams, which in recent weeks included sending last years Red Bull F1 car around Mount Panorama in a demonstration session during the Bathurst 12 Hour event. While open-wheel racing remains his primary focus, he’s no slouch in ‘tin-tops’ either as evidenced by his 2021 campaign in the German DTM series where he put it to the BMWs, Audis, and Mercs by taking a Ferrari to second in the championship.
Our most recent F1 race driver, Brendon Hartley, returns for another season in the World Endurance Championship where the three-time series champion and Le Mans winner will seek to retain both of those crowns from 2022 with his Toyota Kazoo team and the all-conquering GR010 Hypercar.
Also in the endurance game is Earl Bamber, who plies his trade in the parallel North American IMSA series driving for Cadillac Racing (owned by Dixon’s boss Chip Ganassi) and will make his return to the WEC – where he’s won Le Mans twice – by spearheading the American manufacturers entry into that championship as well.
The top European series that has two Kiwi drivers competing in it this season is the all-electric Formula E where the series is already five races in, and like the V8’s in Australia the category is debuting new machinery in 2023. Mitch Evans returns for his seventh season with Jaguar looking to go one better than last years second place in the championship but will have to overcome a slow start so far. Joining him in his debut season in the championship and racing for Jaguar’s customer team Envision is Nick Cassidy, who has made the podium in the last two events in Hyderabad and Cape Town and sits fifth at time of writing. Cassidy raced in both the WEC and German DTM last year and notched two wins in the latter.
If mud and slush is your thing, Haydon Paddon will be taking on the European Rally Championship this year in his Hyundai while also looking to compete in some World Rally events in the WRC2 class, while Emma Gilmour returns for the Extreme E season with McLaren alongside her co-driver American Tanner Foust.
And finally, for those who like their racing on small, tight, dirt tracks Michael Pickens is set for another year in North American mixing it with their very best Sprintcar drivers – which sometimes including NASCAR stars like Kyle Larson who Pickens memorably duelled with at one event two years ago – at events like the Chilli Bowl; acclaimed as the SuperBowl of sprint car racing.
So whatever the weekend is from now through until late October, there’s probably someone flying the flag on a racetrack somewhere on the globe.
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