NZ F5000 Running Close to Home

As the season in Europe comes to a close, it’s springtime in the southern hemisphere and the NZ F5000 Tasman Cup Revival Series season is just beginning.  With travel for competition outside New Zealand’s borders virtually impossible, the Formula 5000 Association are preparing for a wholly NZ-based 2020/21 series of races.   Contested over just four – rather than the more usual five, or even six – rounds, the season kicked off on 13-15 November at the Circuit Chris Amon in Manfeild Feilding NZ.

The rest of the season is scheduled from January to March:

22-24 January 2021 – Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park Taupo

05-07 February – Mike Pero Motorsport Park Ruapuna

20-21 March – Hampton Downs Waikato

 Heading the entry list is reigning champion young, Michael Collins from Christchurch, who will once again be behind the wheel of one of Alistair and Vicki Hey’s Leda/McRae GM1s.  This season though he will be driving the original Tasman and US L&M Series-winning 1972 Leda LT27/GM1 001, while older sister Anna Collins will take over the Leda LT27/McRae car Michael used to win the 2019/20 title.

Like her older sister Katherine, and younger brother Michael, Anna, 28, enjoyed a successful career start in karts.  She then graduated to the South Island Formula Ford championship in 2015 and won the NZ Class 2 Formula Ford championship in only her second year in the category.  Last season she finished fifth overall in the South Island F1600 Series.

Set to take the battle to the Collins siblings this year is 2019/20 series’ runner-up Glenn Richards from Auckland (ex-Eppie Weitz Lola T400) and the series’ other familial pair, father and son David and Codie Banks.