15-year-old Mitch Evans, from Auckland, won the 2010 Toyota Racing Series – New Zealand’s premier single seater Gold Star racing championship - when took two seconds and a third in the last round of the championship at Taupo this weekend, to give him a points-winning result of three over the experienced and multi-talented Earl Bamber (19) who finished second in the overall New Zealand Championship.

Although Bamber won all three races at this final round of the championship, Mitch had enough of a points lead over Bamber to resist the temptation of trying to beat him, especially with the Denny Hulme Memorial Trophy at stake on the feature race.

“I was racing for the championship and the best way that I could do that was to ensure I finished close behind Earl in all three races, and not become involved in any ‘incidents’”, said Mitch, showing a racing maturity beyond his years.

Previously, Evans, son of Owen Evans and grandson of the late Laurie Evans – one of the legendary families of NZ Motorsport – had won the International section of the TRS Championship and finished second in the NZ Grand Prix at Manfeild.

Wanganui’s Earl Bamber had a nail-biting clincher to the 2010 Toyota Racing Series – losing his race grip on the title crown after a last-lap gain by rival Mitch Evans.

Winning this morning’s 20-lap Denny Hulme trophy race in the VnC Cocktails Mad Butcher Toyota FT40, Bamber started the afternoon 12-lap race from sixth in the top-six reverse grid finale. Making a careful start he worked his way to the front for what resulted in a three-peat victory for the weekend. However the overall title came down to the finishing position of 15-year-old Evans, who needed to finish third or better.

Triple X Motorsport team-mate Stefan Webling moved the Horizon Energy Services Miles Toyota to second behind Bamber with Palmerston North’s Sam McNeill following through to hold third position – ousting Evans from the top tier. However the positions reversed in the dying laps, with McNeill suffering front wing damage to let Evans back to third in the race and the series lead.

A new lap record wasn’t enough for Mitch Evans to prevent Earl Bamber closing down the gap in the 2010 Toyota Racing Series in the opening race of the final round at Taupo today.

Bamber started from pole position, narrowly fended off a first corner challenge from Evans and then controlled the gap thoughout the 12 laps to win by 0.6s from his younger rival.

It was Bamber’s fourth win of the season and brought the 19-year-old from Wanganui within 26pts of Evans who has won three races this year – but none of the last six.

In contrast, Bamber’s victory at Taupo today came straight on top of his win in the New Zealand Grand Prix at Manfeild. It was Bamber’s 14th win in TRS since 2007 and reduced his deficit to Evans by 8pts.

However, Evans’ consistency throughout the season may well pay off in the two races that complete the season tomorrow.

Wanganui’s Earl Bamber has won the 15-lap Toyota Racing Series race at Taupo having started from pole in the Triple X Motorsport run VnC Cocktails Mad Butcher Toyota FT40.

With a winning margin of 0.6 of a second, Bamber’s win eats in to the overall series lead held by Mitch Evans, cutting the deficit from 32 points to 26.  Although Bamber led for the entire race, he said the strategy was to do what was required to stay in front and conserve the tyres for the remaining two races on the programme.

“What we are hunting is points, so the goal was the race win and save the tyres as much as we can because we’ve got three decent length races and one set of tyres,” said Bamber.

“With the V8’s and Porsches racing here the track has changed slightly since qualifying this morning and the car wasn’t as balanced as we’d setup.  So we’ll look at the data and even though we won the race we can still make it better.”