It’s all on at Highlands Motorsport Park this weekend as the 2026 Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Trophy concludes with the 70th New Zealand Grand Prix.
In what has probably been one of the most competitive and closely fought championships in New Zealand single-seater history, American Ugo Ugochukwu, who has led the title chase from the start, heads into the weekend with a slim advantage over the pack behind.
The M2 Competition young gun – heading to FIA F3 later this year – holds a slender lead of 22 points with 125 still to be won over team mate Freddie Slater. The Brit will race against him in F3 as well and put enough pressure on Ugochukwu last weekend at Teretonga to force an error. It was Ugo’s first mistake of the season, but it was costly. Time will tell if Slater now has the momentum.
It’s not a two-way fight for the Trophy title, however – it’s actually a five-way battle heading into the final weekend. New team Hitech has been impressive during its first New Zealand campaign and has skin in the game for the title battle with Jin Nakamura, a model of consistency throughout.
A small mistake by him at Teretonga cost him, but he’s only four points adrift of Slater in second. He’s still chasing that first win. If it comes early at Highlands, momentum could swing his and Hitech’s way.
Top Kiwi Louis Sharp is next up for mtec Motorsport and is narrowly ahead of his team mate, the impressive Ryan Wood. Wood is only 35 points off the lead and five behind Sharp, so both of those drivers are in with a shout, too.
A number of other drivers could win races – or the Grand Prix itself this weekend. Australia’s James Wharton and Kiwi Zack Scoular have won races, and a host of others have had podium finishes, including Hitech duo Kanato Le and rally champion Kalle Rovanperä, and young gun Cooper Shipman out of the USA.
Jack Taylor, Yuanpu Cui, Yevan David, Red Bull Juniors Ernesto Rivera and Fionn McLaughlin and IndyNXT’s Nolan Allaer are also looking for a breakthrough result. Given that tenths and even hundredths of a second have separated most of the 19-car field, a shock result from any of these drivers cannot be written off.
Liam Sceats appears for this round only, taking the grid up to an impressive 20 cars. Sceats is a circuit expert at Highlands and won the Grand Prix in 2024.
A class act in and out of the car, Sceats knows the FT60 car like the back of his hand and is familiar with the Pirelli tyres. It is inconceivable he won’t be a factor in the Grand Prix, even if he has to play himself in lap by lap over the course of the early test, practice, qualifying sessions and races.
There are several more titles up for grabs. The team’s championship will be a three-way shoot-out between M2 Competition, mtec Motorsport and Hitech. All three are covered by just 47 points.
Wood has a healthy lead over Rovanperä in the Rookie championship, and Sharp is in pole position to take the Trans-Tasman Trophy, which is contested between Australian and New Zealand drivers.
There will be four races this weekend. The first, on Friday evening, is a ‘catch-up’ after Race 3 was postponed due to the inclement weather at Teretonga last Saturday. The grid will be based on the combined fastest lap times from Race 1 and Race 2 last weekend.
Then it’s into the big GP weekend. Saturday sees F1-Style qualifying, with Q1/Q2/Q3 segments eliminating the slowest drivers in each session until the top eight spots for the GP are fought out in the final qualifying segment.
The times recorded from the first segment of GP qualifying – Q1 – will be used to form the grid for Race 1 on Saturday afternoon.
Sunday sees one race in the morning, with the reverse grid from the top eight Race 1 finishers, followed by the rest in finishing order. Then on Sunday afternoon it will be the Grand Prix itself – the longest and most gruelling race of the championship over 27 laps of the demanding Highlands circuit.
Header Image: Joel Hanks
