Johnson avoids Race 2 drama to take first win in NZ

American Nikita Johnson avoided a chaotic start to the second race at Highlands Motorsport Park today to take his first win of the 2025 Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship.

Nicholas Monteiro and Shawn Rashid finished second and third respectively for mtec Motorsport in the 18 lap race, making their first appearances on the podium.

For M2 Competition’s Johnson the points from the race were equally as important as the victory as his main rival for second place overall, mtec’s Zack Scoular, could only manage fourth place.

There was chaos at the first corner after the first three drivers – Johnson, Nicholas Monteiro and Shawn Rashid, arrived almost side-by-side.

Behind them, Saturday winner Patrick Heuzenroeder, Michael Shin and series champion Arvid Lindblad all arrived side-by-side too, and there simply wasn’t enough room for them all.

Shin in the middle made contact with both Patrick on his left, Lindblad on his right and Matias Zagaezta behind was also caught up in the mess.

Lindblad went into the tyre barriers heavily and Heuzenroeder and Shin both sustained suspension damage which put them out on the spot.  

Multiple cars headed off track to avoid contact and most made it through unscathed, with the exception of Giles Motorsport’s Will Brown who damaged another nose and had to head to the pits for repair as the Safety Car came out. 

“I’m sorry for what happened to Patrick as he was also a strong contender for second in the championship but it’s great to take the win and have a small points margin over Zack heading into the Grand Prix,” Johnson said on the podium afterwards.

A clean restart after the crash saw the reduced field get the race underway once again on the fifth lap. Once the early threat of Monteiro subsided, Johnson settled into a series of fast laps – taking the race’s fastest lap as he raced home to a one second margin over the impressive Monteiro, who had stayed within touch for most of the early portion of the race.

Rashid’s start was the best of the cars on the front two rows, and had he not had to move hard left around both Johnson and Monteiro on the run up to the first corner, he potentially could have taken the lead. With Scoular, Sebastian Manson and Matias Zagazeta behind, he did very well to pull away and eventually take a lonely, and unchallenged third place.

Scoular led home M2’s Manson and Zagazeta and behind them in seventh Nicholas Stati finished three second ahead of Canadian James Lawley – who had his best race, and best result in the championship by some margin with eighth. Barrett Wolfe bagged his best series finish with ninth while Alex Crosbie rounded out the top ten of a depleted field.

The race was not a memorable one for the Red Bull liveried cars. The stars of Saturday – Broc Feeney and Will Brown – enjoyed a spirited battle at the back of the pack, Feeney energetic enough in his defence to cop a track limits warning. Brown, however, did make it past before the end to gain team mates bragging rights.

For Lindblad, damage to the tub of his M2 Competition car will mean a change to the category spare car for the Grand Prix to come this afternoon and an even tougher challenge if he wants to become the only driver in the championship history to win all five of its feature races.

2025 Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship – Round 5 – Highlands – Race 2