Runaway championship leader Arvid Lindblad and one of the discoveries of 2025 – Australia’s Patrick Heuzenroeder – set the pace as testing got underway for the fourth and penultimate weekend of the Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship.
Lindblad was on the pace almost instantly in the first session at the short and very quick track, the southern-most circuit recognised in the world by world motorsport governing body the FIA.
Showing all of his class, he quickly mastered his fourth new circuit in four weekends and went quickest, completing 22 laps during the half hour session. Next up was the ever-improving Sebastian Manson, using knowledge of the Invercargill circuit to good effect to clock a time just a couple of tenths shy of Lindblad.
Chinese Taipei racer Enzo Yeh – a former F4 China champion – got his head around the iconic circuit quickly as well to go third ahead of Nikita Johnson – who currently sits second overall in the title chase. Nicolas Stati found pace in testing as he did last weekend at Manfeild to go fifth for Kiwi Motorsport. Matias Zagazeta – still trying to find his race-winning form of round one – was sixth quickest ahead of Michael Shin, Tommy Smith, Zack Scoular and Heuzenroeder.
In the second session Patrick made a big step forward and lowered the benchmark time to an impressive 54.182 seconds, edging the series leader by a scant three tenths of a second. The USA’s Nikita Johnson – expected to make a major announcement about his 2025 plans over the NZ weekend – showed his consistency with another top five spot – this time in third.
Zack Scoular was top Kiwi in the second session, making a significant step up to go fourth and just three tenths off Johnson’s fastest time. Zagazeta also improved to go a promising fifth, while Shawn Rashid popped up in sixth. Manson was in the top ten again in seventh. Stati, Shin and Alex Crosbie in his Castrol-backed Giles Motorsport entry completed the fastest ten.
Friday will see the Castrol Toyota FR Oceania runners get three sessions around the Teretonga circuit and after the third, when everyone has completed race simulation runs and practice qualifying runs, there will be a better idea of who is going to have form over the weekend. And whether that form will be enough to challenge Red Bull’s flying Lindblad.
Header Image: Bruce Jenkins
