Rain master Taylor stuns star-studded field with pole

Giles Motorsport Australian youngster Jack Taylor proved master of the wet conditions in qualifying for the Denny Hulme Memorial Trophy feature race at Taupo this morning as the second round of the 2026 Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Trophy excitement continued.

As the lap times tumbled on a drying track at the end of the session, Taylor kept his head and delivered a world class lap in a world class field to take his first pole position – and Giles Motorsport’s – of this year’s Trophy. And that was despite a spin during the session as well.

“I don’t know where that came from to be honest – we had some wet running on Thursday, Stephen and the team gave me a great car and obviously I’m very happy,” he beamed afterwards. “I’m always more relaxed in the wet and I really enjoy it. It’s comfortable for me.”

Saturday winner Ryan Wood will join Taylor on the front row for the big afternoon race, and much to the delight of the sizeable Sri Lankan contingent in the paddock braving the inclement weather, Yevan David will start third.

TJ Speed’s Trevor LaTourette was the first casualty in the very wet conditions, going off and bringing out a very early red, which would guarantee him another starting spot at the back regardless of how well he went in the session.

Once the session was underway, it had probably got a little wetter still and it was full wets all round for the CTFROT runners. There had been some wet testing in the early session on the Thursday before the weekend got underway but it was limited with many opting not to get any serious wet running in ahead of the promise of better weather and a dry track.

Louis Sharp was quickly on the pace for mtec Motorsport ahead of team mate and Saturday winner Ryan Wood, Taylor and – revelling in the more challenging conditions – two-time World Rally champion Kalle Rovanperä.

The names at the top of the timesheets changed rapidly in the first ten minutes of the session as the drivers found their feet and carved chunks of time off their last lap – with lap times around eight seconds off a good dry time, but dropping almost every lap.

With five minutes to go David – one of the Thursday wet runners – popped up at the top of the timesheets for Kiwi Motorsport, ahead of Wood, Sharp, M2 Competition’s Freddie Slater, Hitech’s Kanato Le, race winner James Wharton for TJ Speed by HMD Motorsport, Yuanpu Cui and Rovanperä.  With Fionn McLaughlin and Taylor completing the top ten.

With two to go Sharp moved to the top just a few thousandths ahead of David before Taylor put in an absolute flyer of a lap to go fastest by a tenth – demonstrating his skill set includes exceptional wet weather ability. That was quickly beaten by Ugo Ugochukwu before Wood went four tenths faster again and the first driver under 1 minute 32. Teammate Sharp was next up and that looked like it but there was one twist left, and it belonged to Taylor.

On his final run to the flag, Jack clocked a 1.31.340 to go three tenths ahead of Wood, with David and Kanato Le taking the spots on the second row of the grid for the feature race.

Sharp ended up fifth and Wharton sixth for row three, with Cui and Slater seventh and eighth and Ernesto Rivera and Nakamura completing the top ten. Championship leader Ugo Ugochukwu showed pace late on but would have to settle for eleventh on the grid.

All of the weekend’s action is being livestreamed on TGRNZ’s YouTube channel, and all races are live on Sky Sport NZ.

2026 Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Trophy – R2 Taupo Denny Hulme Memorial Qual.