Invercargill – close to the most southerly tip of New Zealand – is the next stop on the Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Trophy trail – and there is a huge amount to play for after two mouth-watering rounds in the North Island.
The third round is all set for this weekend around the historic – and unforgiving – Teretonga circuit with its mega straight likely to produce the best push-to-pass action seen so far in what has been an enthralling championship.
Another excellent weekend at Taupo – though he had to work harder for it – helped M2 Competition’s Ugo Ugochukwu retain his series lead, and by 33 points. But there’s way more to it than that simple statistic.
At one point over the Taupo weekend, the super-smooth and super-fast Ugo was 48 points ahead of the next man, but now there are five drivers within that range, and another just a couple of points further back. Ugo, however, remains firmly the man they all have to beat.
So who can beat him?
It probably sounds odd to say Ryan Wood is a bit of a discovery in this year’s Trophy, as he is already an established winner and star of Australia’s pinnacle motorsport championship, Supercars. But he is, nonetheless, a major discovery.
In his first season ever in any form of single-seater racing car, he’s putting many to shame, and in the feature race last weekend, the Denny Hulme Memorial Trophy, he left one of the highest quality junior fields ever to be assembled in NZ firmly behind him to score a famous win.
When you consider the quality of that field, it’s pretty easy to see why all eyes are on Wood and will remain so this weekend at Teretonga.
His rivals include nine drivers who will race in FIA F3 later this year – all hoping to progress to F1, of course – several more on the same trajectory with their existing results in Formula 4 and Formula Regional. And a couple of other top performers in IndyNXT racer Nolan Allaer and , of course, a two-time World Rally Champion, Kalle Rovanperä.
Wood still has much work to do, however, and it must be done this weekend in Invercargill if he is to head into the final weekend of the NZ Grand Prix with any realistic chance of taking a shock Trophy title. He sits fifth in the points, 44 behind Ugochukwu.
Hitech’s Jin Nakamura sits three points ahead of Wood, with mtec Motorsport team mate Louis Sharp nine points ahead, and Hitech’s impressive Kanato Le is Ugochukwu’s primary challenger, three points ahead of Sharp.
Nakamura and Le both need a win – if only to unlock the confidence that they truly can win in this championship and on these NZ tracks. A win early on this weekend for either could put real pressure on the series leader. Hitech has been super impressive as a newcomer to the championship. They know how to win, too. Further improvements in pace and results for their drivers would seem inevitable.
Sharp has demonstrated plenty of pace, particularly in the races, and seems to have mastered the push-to-pass system now better than most after a wobbly start at Hampton Downs. A bit more pace in qualifying and he too could quickly emerge as a favourite for the title with half of the races still to go.
Behind the big six, Freddie Slater has been fast if a little erratic, to date, but that’s only because he is a driver who is always pushing. A win for the M2 Competition driver must surely come sooner rather than later, and that, too, could change the complexion of the second half of the season.
Zack Scoular, the third mtec driver in the top ten, has taken two excellent victories on the back of some firm strategic decisions in races where no points were at stake. And he could keep doing that, and win again. But to make a championship challenge, he will need to be fast in every race and score big points in every race.
The first of the Red Bull Juniors, Ernesto Rivera, has run strongly in the reverse top eight races at both Hampton Downs and Taupo, and is getting better with each round. He’ll be even better at Teretonga.
Allaer is impressing in every race and every session, too. He clearly listens to his engineers, improves all the time and is now a regular in the top ten, or higher, in any given race or session. Slightly older than some of the young guns in the field, he’s really making the most of his time in New Zealand.
Yuanpu Cui has been fast on occasion so far, too; the F4 China champion is another to be learning a lot from his NZ experience. Kiwi Motorsport’s Yevan David has plenty of speed – and plenty of fans – and is due a strong result, or even a win.
Red Bull’s second junior, Fionn McLaughlin, has the pace, but is yet to truly ‘fire’ with the results, though he can clearly race hard and race well. Seb Manson sits behind Fionn in the points and is yet another with the pace – but not yet the consistency – to win in this 2026 field.
Rally icon Rovanperä put in his best performance so far in the championship in the Denny Hulme Memorial feature race and is now knocking on the door of regular top tens. He was very quick in the wet at Taupo too – as one would expect – and with rain highly likely, if not guaranteed at some point this weekend in Invercargill, he could be a major player.
Talking of wet weather performance, young Jack Taylor was an absolute star of wet qualifying at Taupo and took pole position in style for the feature race. He loves the wet and is in safe hands with Stephen Giles’ team. There’s a very good vibe at the end of the paddock with Allaer and Tayler in the same garage. A win in the wet for Tayler at some point over the weekend? Entirely possible.
Cooper Shipman, Ricardo Baptista and Trevor LaTourette are all potential top ten point scorers, too, but a big result for each will likely depend on what is happening ahead of them.
It’s all set for another thriller of a weekend.
Header Image: Joel Hanks
