Wood and Wharton shine in Friday practice

A fired up Ryan Wood grabbed fastest time in two of today’s three practice sessions at Taupo ahead of the second round of the 2026 Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Trophy.

Wood, taken out of the final feature race last weekend at Hampton Downs, gave notice of intent of a very strong weekend by being quick in all three of the sessions in his mtec Motorsport car.

So too was Australian James Wharton for TJ Speed with HMD Motorsports, revelling in the car, the tyres, the fully dry conditions and in some subtle but effective changes to his engineering support trackside.   

Wood was quickly into his stride in the first session, finding the limits of the partly damp track quickly and putting in several laps that were quicker than anyone else around the circuit where he scored his first Supercars podium.

His quickest lap gave him an advantage of around half a second until a fully dry line appeared. That allowed TJ Speed with HMD Motorsport’s James Wharton to get within a tenth of him by the end of the session with Brit Freddie Slater also eye-catchingly fast in third. Sri Lankan Yevan David maintained his Thursday form with fourth fastest ahead of Hitech’s Jin Nakamura and Louis Sharp.

A little further back round one pacesetter Ugo Ugochukwu was eighth fastest while two time world rally champion Kalle Rovanperä continued his learning process in 12^th. Clearly at one with the damp/dry conditions early in the session, he was quickly inside the top six, but fell back down the order a little as the track fully dried. Regardless, the Finn certainly looks to be moving closer towards the front in one of the most fiercely competitive fields in two decades of NZ’s premier motorsport championship.

With an increase in tyre allocation for pre-event testing compared to last season from one set to two sets, all of the drivers emerged for the second session with new tyres – and some with higher fuel loads – and the top runners by the end of the session were onto their second set of fresh rubber.

Wharton ended up fastest but behind him it was that man Wood again, followed by mtec Motorsport team mates and fellow Kiwi racers Zack Scoular and Sharp. Nakamura was next up for Hitech, followed by David for Kiwi Motorsport, early session pacesetter Slater for M2 Competition and ominously – Ugochukwu – who was running a heavier fuel load in his car than the rest throughout.  Hitech’s Kanato Le and M2’s Seb Manson rounded out the top ten.

The third session – with drivers running simulated qualifying laps – was blighted by a significant number of lap times being deleted for many of the drivers exceeding track limits at the super fast right hand Turn 9. After all of those times had been deleted Wood retained the fastest time, but the session was largely unrepresentative.  

The real action begins on Saturday, with three track sessions – one qualifying, the first race and then race two later in the day, with the first eight on that grid a reverse of the top eight finishing order from race one.

All the weekend’s action will be livestreamed on TGRNZ’s YouTube channel, and all races will be live on Sky Sport NZ. Tickets to come along to the race weekend are still available at https://nextgennz.flicket.co.nz

2026 Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Trophy – R2 Taupo Practice 1

2026 Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Trophy – R2 Taupo Practice 2

 2026 Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Trophy – R2 Taupo Practice 3 - PROVISIONAL

Order subject to change after lap deletions