High speed and high drama in Highlands practice

A dramatic Friday practice saw fast times, and high drama for one of the pace setters, at the final round of the 2026 Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Trophy at Highlands Motorsport Park today.

Jin Nakamura clocked the fastest time of the day in the first session when conditions were perfect, Zack Scoular was fastest in the second session before a heavy impact with the barrier at the final turn on what would have been an even faster lap and Ryan Wood showed he will be a threat this weekend for the title and the 70^th New Zealand Grand Prix itself with fastest time in the final session.

Times were very quick in the first practice with Hitech’s Nakamura and TJ Speed’s James Wharton within four one hundredths of a second of eachother at the top of the time sheets. 

With Saturday’s qualifying session pivotal for the first race and the Grand Prix itself, teams were obviously focussed on outright pace rather than specifically longer runs on higher fuel loads and the session looked a lot more like a qualifying session than anything seen so far in the 2026 Trophy.

All the way back to 18^th placed Jack Taylor, the times were all comfortably under 1 minute 30s mark and all were covered by just over a second. Championship leader Ugochukwu was fast again, with Kanato Le behind him and Yuanpu Cui and then Freddie Slater.

Top Kiwi – impressively – was Liam Sceats, GP winner in 2024 and making a serious attempt at win number two this weekend in New Zealand’s most iconic single seater race. He just edged out compatriots Ryan Wood, Louis Sharp and Red Bull Junior Ernesto Rivera.

Sceats impressive run continued in the second session as he went quickest early on and for a while it was a Kiwi 1-2-3 with Wood, Zack Scoular and Sceats filling the top spots.

As the session progressed and with slightly slower overall times as the air temperature increased, Sharp, Nakamura, Ugochukwu then Scoular all traded fastest laps. Not far behind Nakamura, Slater, Wharton and Rivera all showed good pace at the halfway mark of the 30 minute session. It was, once again, an intensely competitive top ten in a CTFROT session – a hallmark of the championship.  

The second session was red flagged with just over seven minutes remaining when Scoular had a big off at the final corner – a notorious and unforgiving feature of the scenic 4.1km Cromwell track. Zack had just set the fastest lap and thought he was on an even faster one before the final corner drama.

There was extensive damage to the FT60 which lost both right hand side corners, but with Scoular perfectly OK and the FT60 tub shaken but not stirred, the mtec Motorsport mechanics got stuck in and began the process of repairing the car. It wouldn’t be ready for the final practice session but the target was to have it ready for the postponed Round 3 Race 3 due off at 5.20pm.

Scoular’s crash brought the session to a close and left him fastest, ahead of Ugochukwu, the impressive Sceats, Nakamura, Wood, Slater, Sharp, Le, Yevan David and Wharton. Wood hit form in the third and final session of the day before the late afternoon race, and with slower times it looked like teams had turned their attention to race set ups for that vital points race later in the day.

Wood was fastest throughout and left the mark at 1 minute 28.722 seconds, still fast but slower than the times earlier in the day, due to increased heat or more likely a higher fuel load. Wharton was another to go well in the session, finishing just seven hundredths slower than Ryan.

Perhaps the most eye-catching performance came from Liam Sceats. Not eligible to compete in the evening race, he made the most of his day to end the third session with the second fastest time in the Castrol-supported FT60.

Sharp made it three Kiwis in the top four for the session while Yevan David continued his improvement throughout the day to end the final session fifth. Ugochukwu was a solid sixth, ahead of Nakamura, the impressive Allaer, title rival Slater and Rivera, having another good session in tenth.

2026 Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Trophy – Round 4 – Practice 1

2026 Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Trophy – Round 4 – Practice 2

2026 Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Trophy – Round 4 – Practice 3