TASMAN SERIES

The 'Tasman Series' was a motor racing series held from 1964 to 1976, in Australia and New Zealand, and named after the Tasman Sea between the two countries. The Tasman series was held during the Formula One off season, usually between November to March, taking advantage of winter in the Northern hemisphere to attract many top drivers to summer in the south.
The Tasman Series used open-wheel single-seater racing cars similar to Formula One, yet retaining F1 engine rules that were in effect until 1960, which became known as the Intercontinental Formula. Thus, engines of 2500 cm³ that were obsolete for the contemporary Formula One World Championship could still be used. After F1 upgraded to 3000 cm³ in 1966, the Tasman series went on for some more years. Usually, the chassis of the previous F1 season were fitted with "Tasman" engines, and entered "down under". In what many consider Tasman's zenith season, 1968, Cosworth even produced a Tasman variant of its legendary DFV V8, known as the DFW, and BRM equipped its cars with a reduced capacity version of their F1 V12. Unfortunately for the Tasman Series, F1's "return to power", coupled to ever increasing costs, reduced the cachet of its Antipodean sister and after 1968 teams became increasingly unwilling to invest significant funds into what many perceived as a lesser championship. In an attempt to reduce costs the Tasman Series switched to Formula 5000 rules from 1970, but even this formula became victim to spiralling costs and at the end of the 1976 event the series folded.
Many high-profile local drivers from that era, such as Jack Brabham, Bruce McLaren, Chris Amon and Denny Hulme took part in their home event, but the series also attracted international F1 stars like Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Phil Hill, Jochen Rindt, Pedro Rodríguez and Jackie Stewart, who travelled the long way from Europe.

Contents

Tasman Champions

External links

Tasman Champions

Season	Driver	Car	Wins	Podiums	Points	Margin (pnts)
1975	Warwick Brown	Lola T332-Chevrolet	2	4	31	1
1974	Peter Gethin	Chevron B24-Chevrolet	2	5	41	15
1973	Graham McRae	McRae GM1-Chevrolet	3	5	40	11
1972	Graham McRae	Leda GM1-Chevrolet	4	4	39	11
1971	Graham McRae	McLaren M10B-Chevrolet	3	5	35	4
1970	Graeme Lawrence	Ferrari 246T	1	5	30	5
1969	Chris Amon	Ferrari 246T	4	6	44	14
1968	Jim Clark	Lotus 49T-Cosworth DFW	4	5	44	8
1967	Jim Clark	Lotus 33-Climax FPF	3 (5)	6 (8)	45 (63)	27
1966	Jackie Stewart	BRM P261	4	5	45	15
1965	Jim Clark	Lotus 32B-Climax FPF	3 (4)	4 (5)	35 (44)	11
1964	Bruce McLaren	Cooper T70-Climax FPF	3	5 (7)	39 (47)	6

Note: values in parentheses include the results from all races, not all of which counted towards the championship.

External links

★ Tasman Series historical site

★ Tasman racing in New Zealand