Motorsport: NZ competition gets world attention

Peter Collins, wearing blue shirt, helps his young charge, Matteo Ferrer, prepare to race. Picture / Bruce Jenkins

Toyota series proves ideal training ground for future stars

The growing international reputation of the Toyota Racing Series is attracting some big names who bring their young charges to New Zealand to get 15 races over five weeks under their belts.

In the past we've seen 1996 Formula One world champion Damon Hill bring his son Josh out, fellow F1 driver Gerhard Berger's nephew Lucas Auer cut his teeth in the TRS and this year three-time world F1 champion Nelson Piquet accompanied his 15-year-old son Pedro here.

Also contesting the series in 2014 was Italian Matteo Ferrer, managed by Peter Collins who has He's fast but hasn't quite yet understood how to be fast and consistent.Manager Peter Collins on Matteo Ferrer been involved in motor racing since the late 1960s. Born in Australia, Collins left school in 1968 and was soon working at the Ferrari agent in Australia, Scuderia Veloce, and was helping with Chris Amon's car.

A few years later Collins snared a job at the NSW Warwick Farm racetrack and by 1978 was team manager at the Lotus F1 outfit. The team struggled but he remained there and played an important role in getting Nigel Mansell to the team.

He left in 1981, moving to ATS, but soon found himself as team manager at Williams F1 where he stayed until 1986 when a job came up at Benetton. There, he negotiated an engine deal with BMW, hired Berger and the team won their first race in Mexico at the end of 1986. A new deal was organised with Ford and Collins signed up Johnny Herbert for the 1989 season.

During 1990 Collins and Peter Wright put together a deal to take over the running of Team Lotus. They hired Mika Hakkinen and Herbert. The team struggled financially despite some promising results and eventually closed down at the end of 1994.

Since leaving F1 Collins has worked in karting and is keen on helping to promote and manage new young drivers, hence his presence in New Zealand mentoring Ferrer.

"First up it's a very well organised series and the car is at a very good safety level, especially with all the young guys driving," Collins said.

"It's also an opportunity for these guys to get saturated with a lot of racing in a short period of time in an environment that is challenging, unlike what you find in Europe.

"The tracks in Europe are so sanitised and when you make things so safe the intrinsic demands of racing are dispensed with. You create a bigger problem than you are trying to solve.

"The good young drivers who come out here look at it as a great place to learn and develop as racers and it helps immensely with them learning race craft.

"Matteo [Ferrer] hadn't done anything in a race car until mid-2012 and so to come here and do so much racing has been good for him. He had no real knowledge of the sport so his race craft has been the most challenging aspect for him.

"He's fast but hasn't quite yet understood how to be fast and consistent. He's come to learn some things and it's been really beneficial for him and he's gaining a better perspective on how to go about racing.

"He's also learning to be patient and gauge when to pass and when not to pass and learn to control his emotions."

Talking about controlling emotions, the V8 SuperTourers has struggled to get more than 11 or 12 cars on to the grid this year and the NZV8 series is worse off.

So, what does someone with such extensive international motorsport knowledge think?

"Motorsport has evolved so much in the past years that it's time for a lot of governing bodies around the world to take a step back and totally reassess," said Collins.

"They need to restructure for today and not 50 years ago.

"We need to take in how economies work on a national and global scale and there needs to be a robust infrastructure, and long-term structure to help and encourage young drivers come through and go overseas.

"It would be a challenge to change some of the thinking with governing bodies and find where the dysfunctionality is. You have to look the elephant in the room not only in the eye, but through 360 degrees."