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New Zealand Formula 5000 champ tests S5000
Aucklander Andy Higgins is the latest well-qualified driver to test an S5000 car.
The historic specialist and current LMP2 racer spent Saturday at The Bend Motorsport Park in South Australia with Team BRM, testing thhe familiar red car raced by both Rubens Barrichello and Anton de Pasquale.
Higgins, 39, has a strong open-wheeler background, particularly in Formula 5000. He won the 2017/18 NZ F5000 Tasman Revival series in a Lola T332, provided an interesting perspective on the S5000 as compared to the Formula 5000 car, which provided much of the inspiration for the all-new V8-powered S5000 formula.
“It was really good to have a proper drive of the car – which is very different to the old F5000 for obvious reasons,” he said.
“Technological progress means that it’s a fairly refined package in comparison, although it retains the essence of the brute V8 that characterised Formula 5000.”
Higgins hopes to be on the grid in 2020.
“Absolutely. I’m one of those that believes you need to have a really good test of a car to know where you’d like to go with it – and, yes, having driven it I’d like to race one!”
Higgins will be back at The Bend in January, for the second round of the four-race 2019/20 Asian Le Mans sports car endurance series, driving an LMP2 Oreca with RLR MSport. The team took out the LMP2 AM class at the opening round, in Shanghai, last month.