The first shots were fired today by the 20 drivers who will contest the final round of the 2026 Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship – including the 70th New Zealand Grand Prix – at Highlands Motorsport Park this weekend.
Two collective sessions saw Zack Scoular top the first and Ugo Ugochukwu the second session, with all of the main championship protagonists on the pace throughout the day.
Ugo Ugochukwu, Freddie Slater, Jin Nakamura and Louis Sharp all had plenty of pace as the fastest drivers quickly went under the 1 minute 30 second benchmark lap time for the Trophy cars around the challenging Cromwell track.
Slater was confirmed overnight Thursday as one of the new Audi F1 team’s junior programme drivers and celebrated with two impressively solid sessions. The rising British star has won every championship he has contested and, after winning the feature race last weekend at Teretonga, is the man with momentum heading into the final weekend in NZ.
There’s the small matter of series leader and M2 Competition driver Ugochukwu to overcome before any of that happens, however, and the American had the edge on Slater by a couple of tenths in the first session today as they took second and third fastest times.
Louis Sharp is very much a threat to all of those ahead of him in the points this weekend and looked good in the first session with the fourth fastest time. Japan’s Jin Nakamura – third in the points – was next up for Hitech, while James Wharton, back for TJ Speed after missing Teretonga with testing commitments in Bahrain, was quickly up to speed in sixth ahead of Giles Motorsport’s Nolan Allaer.
Red Bull Junior Ernesto Rivera was eighth for M2 Competition, Yuanpu Cui ninth for mtec Motorsport, and Hitech’s Fionn McLaughlin, the second of the Red Bull Juniors, had the tenth fastest time.
Liam Sceats settled in well as he acclimatised himself for a one-off appearance solely focused on winning his second NZ GP. He was 13th fastest, one place ahead of two-time World Rally champion Kalle Rovanperä.
The first session didn’t start too well for Supercars driver Ryan Wood, however. Sitting fifth in the points, the mtec Motorsport driver had his fire extinguisher blow off in the cockpit on his out lap. That put an end to his session. The second session went much better as he went second quickest behind Ugochukwu and one place ahead of Sharp.
Wharton improved his pace, as did Nakamura, and they ended the session in fourth and fifth. Cui went well too for sixth while Slater was seventh ahead of Rivera, McLaughlin and Scoular.
As has been the case with the Trophy championships this season, times were incredibly close, with the top ten covered by seven tenths of a second. The field go again with three official practice sessions on Friday and an extra race on Friday evening – a change of circuit but still the postponed third race from Teretonga.
Critical to success could be how well all the drivers – and particularly those in the title fight – manage the track limits restrictions at the circuit’s tricky turn 10, particularly in Saturday qualifying.
2026 Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Trophy – Round 4 – Collective Test 1
2026 Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Trophy – Round 4 – Collective Test 2
Header Image: Bruce Jenkins
