North Canterbury teenager Jackson Culver has become the first New Zealand driver to win an Australian Formula 4 title after clinching the Gen1 championship in the season’s final race.
Culver took a narrow one-point lead into the season’s finale at Queensland Raceway, slipped back during the weekend and then secured the title with a third-place finish in the third and final race.
“Super happy to be the first to bring a trophy back to New Zealand,” said Culver, who turned 15 years old in the lead-up, “the best birthday present ever to win a championship.”
Culver has gone one better than Liam Lawson in 2017 and this year’s Gen2 runner-up Marco Manson.
However, it was a rollercoaster season with a three-way title fight over the five rounds.
A disqualification for a technical infringement from the second race for his closest competitor, Koby Wilson, eased the pressure and ensured a top three finish in the final 25-minute race would be enough to seal the championship victory.
“It took a bit of pressure off for the final race, but still had to finish P3 or higher to win the championship and P2 to win the round but got stuck behind slower cars at the start of the race which allowed the front two to pull away,” said Culver, who slipped back to fourth but then managed to make a pass and clear the slower cars to stretch that gap to over 11-seconds at the chequered flag.
Culver then set about hunting down the leading duo but ran out of time to move further ahead.
“It’s been a pretty up and down season to be honest but just managed to stay consistent, pretty much every race and every round and that got the job done,” he added.
Running consistent race laps has been a hallmark of Culver’s racing, which he says goes back to his karting days.
“We would go out lap after lap just drilling in the exact same time so that training has certainly helped a huge amount, and to now do 25-minute races with all the laps within a tenth [of a second] or two can really gain or pull a gap quite impressively.”
Culver also hopes his success will encourage other young Kiwi drivers progressing from the junior single-seater ranks to head to Australia for the entry-level Gen1 Formula 4 championship.
“It’s a really good series and a good learning curve to the next step of bigger, faster Gen2 cars. I definitely hope it will encourage other young drivers to have a crack at it as well.”
For winning the Gen1 category of AU4, Culver gets the opportunity of a free Gen2 test, which will take place at Queensland Raceway hot on the heels of the final round.
“I’ve already set myself some target times, half-a-second off what the pole time lap was which I think is pretty doable. I’m very excited.”
From observing the front-running cars all season, Culver has an idea of what he’s expecting to find behind the wheel of the Gen2 car.
“The brakes are a lot softer than the Gen1, and the steering is a lot softer. It’s all a bit newer, but from what I’ve heard from the drivers, it’s easy to drive but hard to be really fast in it, whereas the Gen1 is hard to drive, but once you get the car going with momentum, it’s easy to set really fast lap times.”
Now that Culver has passed the minimum age limit for the Gen2 cars, he’s hoping to secure enough budget to return in 2027 for a shot at the overall championship in the same F4 car currently used in European competitions, including the British series.
Header Image: Josh Cody, JCR.Media
