After three years of pandemic that crippled economies worldwide, New Zealand’s premier race series is at full speed once more. The Castrol Toyota Racing Series is now the Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship - certified by FIA. The new (catchy) name brings the benefit of full FIA status and ‘superpoints’ for leading drivers, which are the only way to gain an F1-level race licence.
The series, which began in 2005, has helped propel more than 20 rising race stars into the top category and boosted the careers on many young Kiwis. In fact, there are only a handful of Kiwi drivers racing overseas who have not contested the series.
It has been three years since Igor Fraga and Liam Lawson gave the motorsport world a nail-biting climax to a closely fought Castrol Toyota Racing Series.
New Zealand’s premier motorsport championship is back on the international scene with more Super Licence points than ever before, a new name and of course, a field of some of the finest rising stars in the motorsport world.
The series returns to the international scene as the most significant single seater championship in New Zealand and Australia, rewarding its champion with 18 Super Licence points, up from 10 (40 are required to test or race in Formula One). Super Licence points will also be awarded all the way down to the ninth place overall finisher.
As always, the championship attracts the fastest young international racers keen to gauge the speed of the local drivers. In the northern hemisphere’s winter, they also get up to 3,000km of testing and racing in cars that meet FIA Regional Championship regulations. In fact the FT-60 cars have even been used for rounds of the Formula W (Women’s) championship.
Callum Hedge, James Penrose, Breanna Morris and Liam Sceats are leading Kiwi drivers.
Callum has the expertise of M2 Competition at his disposal – that should make him principal amongst the Kiwis and a challenger for outright honours.
Up against them are drivers from Australia, the USA, South America, Great Britain and Europe, including Charlie Wurz, son of former F1 driver Alex Wurz. All are in the early part of their own personal journeys to make it to Formula One, IndyCar or another major global series.
David Morales won at the opening round and is showing strong pace though a dnf at the second round harmed his series points tally.
2023 Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship certified by FIA – Drivers
5 Lucas Fecury – Brazil
7 Charlie Wurz – Austria
8 Tom McLennan – Australia
17 Callum Hedge – New Zealand
21 Josh Mason – United Kingdom
23 Liam Sceats – New Zealand
36 Adam Fitzgerald – Ireland *
51 Jacob Abel – United States of America
55 Breanna Morris – New Zealand
66 Ryan Shehan – United States of America
77 David Morales – United States of America
88 Chloe Chambers – United States of America
98 James Penrose – New Zealand
101 Ryder Quinn – Australia
*Final three rounds only
