A wet and wild day at Teretonga Park created plenty of action as the Teretonga International brought the NextGen NZ Championship down South on Saturday.
Persistent rain across the morning failed to dampen spirits, clearing to light showers in the middle of the day; however, heavy rain later in the afternoon washed out the second Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Trophy race.
Series officials will confirm plans for the race, including the possibility of being contested on a later date, in due course.
The opening CTFROT race started in dramatic fashion when polesitter Ernesto Rivera spun out of the race at turn one, allowing British young-gun Freddie Slater to assume a clear lead as the Safety Car was called for the first of what would be three times.
Slater charged away on the restart and then survived a further Safety Car interruption before powering to his first race win of the season, becoming the sixth different winner of the championship in nine races.
Jin Nakamura finished second for the third time this season to entrench himself as a title contender, while World Rally Champion Kalle Rovanpera was third, his first podium finish in open-wheel competition.
Championship leader Ugo Ugochukwu finished ninth to see his championship lead eaten into ahead of the second race, the margin down from 33 points to 25 ahead of Sunday’s races.
Cars gridded up for the second race; however, officials deemed conditions too intense to safely stage the race, scheduled to be the last on the Saturday program.
In GT New Zealand, Joel Giddy charged from the fourth row of the grid to lead the field across the line at the end of a dramatic 30-minute sprint race today; however, his Mercedes-AMG didn’t end up claiming the victory.
A breach of restart procedure saw the championship leader penalised and dropped to third position behind Rick Armstrong, whose Porsche claimed its second race win of the season, and Sam Fillmore. Grant Aitken claimed the GT4 win aboard his Audi R8.
Chris White continued his supreme form in the Bridgestone GR86 Championship by claiming race one today.
Chased down in the closing stages by Ajay Giddy, White held on to take a one-second victory while Zach Blincoe finished third, Hugo Allan and Justin Allen completing the top five.
A competitive South Island debut for the TA2 New Zealand Championship saw young gun Caleb Byers take the win, with Toby Elmiger and Dylan Grant completing the podium. Mustang, Camaro, and Dodge Challenger all represented.
Sebastian Eskandari-Marandi fended off a charging Dylan Petch to claim race one in the New Zealand Formula Ford Championship, winning by just 0.5 seconds with Campbell Owens next.
Dominant polesitter Marco Manson was one of several drivers caught out at turn one in the slippery conditions, finishing ninth.
The Mazda Racing Super Series race was unfortunately red-flagged twice; the first after multiple cars speared off at turn one at the start of the race, and the second after another car found the tyres soon after the restart. Only two laps were officially completed, with Thomas Climo and Ajay Giddy putting on a show at the front while they did race.
Action continues tomorrow at the Teretonga International with the Mazdas kicking off on-track action at 8:30am NZT.
Tickets can be purchased at the gate or via nextgennz.co.nz.
Action will be shown live on Sky Sports NZ, Fox Sports / Kayo in Australia, and YouTube from 9:15 am local time.
For more information, please visit www.nextgennz.co.nz
Header Image: Tayler Burke/Shots By TayB
