Timaru’s Corban Sprague has won the 2025/26 Mazda Pro8 New Zealand series title after the final fifth round in Christchurch over the weekend. Canterbury Car Club’s Euromarque Motorsport Park hosted the Super Weekend of Racing with four eight-lap races for the category.
“Super, super wrapped to get the title,” commented Sprague, who set the fastest lap and won the opening race on Saturday.
“An awesome weekend and great to wrap up the championship with one race to spare. It’s great to finally seal the championship up after a hard-fought couple of years with my team and sponsors.”
Second overall was Hamish Evans, followed by last season’s champion, Jared Pyke, in third.
“Thrilled with that,” said Evans.
“It’s been an intense season with hard racing with a great bunch of guys.
“A massive congrats to Corban (Sprague). He’s been an absolute legend this season. He has amazing speed and race craft and highly deserves it.”
Making a trans-Tasman appearance at the round was reigning RX8 Cup Series Australian Champion, Stiaan Kriel, who won both marble-draw and reverse marble-draw Race 2 & 3.
“We were all over the place in practice as we didn’t get our tyres right,” said Kriel.
“Qualifying didn’t go well as I got the tyre pressures wrong, so we went better in the race on Saturday (Race 1).
“We did a better setup overnight, and this morning we had a different car. We pretty much won two races today (Races 2 and 3) from the back of the field.
“I’ve never raced with a full slick (tyre), and these cars don’t have ABS (brakes), so it has taken a bit to get used to.”
Kriel went on to dominate the final Race 4 (grid determined by points from the previous three races), crossing the line ahead of a hard-charging Evans. However, an earlier altercation with Sprague at the hairpin resulted in a 20-second time penalty, dropping him down to seventh, with Evans inheriting the win.
“That was a good race,” said Evans.
“I tried really hard, put our head down and just tried to catch Stiaan (Kriel).”
Sprague, having dropped down the field, worked his way up to second with Sam Knight finishing in third ahead of Ryan Gallagher, who won the overall Rookie of the Year. Gallagher and Kaleb Pateman finished fourth-equal overall while Knight ended up in fifth.
“The speed was there last year, where this year we have stepped up the reliability and finished every race,” said Sprague.
“I think this season we took a different approach, looking at the long run and the whole championship. Qualifying has been key as it sets up your weekend.”
The Mazda Pro8 New Zealand series acknowledges the support from Kumho Tyres, Disc Brakes Australia, HM Auto Electrical, Silvester V8 Performance, and Sign Base.
Header Image: Tony Knights
