Photo: Toyota Racing NZ
Brandon Maisano claimed his second victory of the Toyota Racing Series campaign in a wet race two at Hampton Downs.
Front row starter Santino Ferrucci took the lead away from polesitter Callum Ilott on the opening lap as the car racing newcomer slipped backwards, with Maisano also gaining a place to second.
The safety car was required after Ferrucci’s Giles team-mates James Munro and?John Simonyan made contact after the latter spun. The race was only briefly green at the restart, before contact between Arjun Maini and Artem Markelov from fourth and fifth.
This triggered another halt, this time leading to a red flag. After the restart, Maisano began to close on Ferrucci and took the lead away with three laps to go.
Ferrucci could not keep up with the Frenchman and instead fell into the clutches of Ferdinand Habsburg, who got past for second place on the very last lap.
However, Habsburg was given a ten-second penalty post-race for a jump start, relegating him to eighth.
That promoted Ferrucci back to second and Danish Formula Ford graduate Mathias Kristensen up into a maiden podium result.
Championship leader Lance Stroll recovered well from 16th on the grid to fourth in the final results. Damon Leitch charged his way up to sixth from tenth at the second restart, but was re-passed for what became fifth by Charlie Eastwood on the final lap.
Stefan Riener was promoted to seventh and the top ten was completed by?Thomas Randle and Sam MacLeod.
UPDATE: Habsburg has appealed his false-start penalty and was successful in getting it rescinded, returning to the runner-up spot. Meanwhile, Eastwood and Matteo Ferrer have picked up 30-second penalties.