Canadian Nicholas Latifi is the latest international driver to sign up for the 2013 Toyota Racing Series.

Latifi (17) will be contesting his first TRS season and comes to the championship from a busy 2012 season racing karts in the USA and Formula 3 in Europe.

This year he won the Rotax DD2 class on the Florida Winter Tour before stepping up to race cars, and posted a race win from just two starts in the 2012 Skip Barber Winter Series (Formula Skip Barber 2000) in the USA.

Crossing the Atlantic, he contested the eight-round 2012 Italian Formula 3 championship, taking two podium finishes and a race win at the penultimate round to finish seventh overall. He will race with Giles Motorsport in the 2013 Toyota Racing Series.

International drivers provide intense competition in the Toyota Racing Series, honing the skills of New Zealand drivers as they benefit from the intense five-weekend, fifteen race format of the championship, racing on challenging and unfamiliar circuits.

It’s a valuable chance to keep their racing skills sharp while the European season is in downtime and the internationals also get to gauge the pace of other drivers they are likely to meet on European circuits later in the year. The series achieves great, close racing and delivers TRS graduates into their northern hemisphere seasons race-fit and ready to compete.

The Toyota Racing Series is one of the first premier championships to start the global competition year.

It begins at Invercargill’s Teretonga Park Raceway, the southernmost racing circuit in the world, 9-13 January 2013 and concludes four weekends later with the 58th New Zealand Grand Prix at Manfeild near Palmerston North.