The Toyota 86 is New Zealand’s most popular – and most successful – one make race car. Between the main GR86 race series and the four-round 86 Trophy for the original model, 24 drivers are contesting rounds of the 86 championship and trophy.
2025-2026 is the 13th season for the ‘main game’. The first 11 seasons used the original Toyota 86; all cars built from new vehicles at Toyota Racing’s then-workshop and headquarters in Mount Wellington and later in its bigger purpose-built facility at Hampton Downs.
For the past two seasons, the main series has switched to the newer model 86 in order to stay relevant to the road cars available to the public. Like the originals, the current cars are purpose-built from new road cars.
With the advent of the new GR86 cars, the original fleet was freed up for use in an introductory sub-category, the 86 Trophy.
Trophy racing kicked off in 2025, and many of the drivers who raced what is effectively a winter one-make race series have used it as a steppingstone into the main game: the 2025-2026 GR86 Championship. 
Lee Zeltwanger, the 2025 Trophy winner, and young star Ajay Giddy are among this group.
The trophy is thus acting as a talent incubator for the main championship, which in turn feeds drivers into top series like the Australian Porsche categories and the Kiwi domestic GT series.
The 2025-2026 GR86 Championship began in November 2025 at the 4.0km Hampton Downs circuit in the northern Waikato. One of New Zealand’s newest race circuits, this contoured circuit with its banked corners introduces an entirely different dimension to open-wheeler and ‘tin-top’ cars alike.
In the first race of the championship, Blenheim’s Arthur Broughan took his debut win after front row drivers Chris White and Hugo Allan were both given five-second penalties for a jumped start.
The next day, Zach Blincoe took his first overall race victory, passing race leader Cooper Barnes at the start of the final lap to seal the deal.
It had looked like Australian Cooper Barnes would win after taking a comfortable lead at the start, but Blincoe had other ideas. He took second from Lee Zeltwanger at the halfway mark, then crept up on Barnes to take the lead and win.
Arthur Broughan won his second race of the weekend at Hampton Downs, taking the flag first from pole position to beat reigning champion Hugo Allan around 12 laps of the international circuit.
Allan put Broughan under immense pressure in the final two laps, but couldn’t find a way past.
The two crossed the line almost side by side, but Broughan managed to hang on and win by two hundredths of a second. Josh Bethune fought his way to third.
The second round in early January 2026, also held at Hampton Downs, saw three different winners across three races. Josh Bethune won the opening race, Australian racer Cooper Barnes won race two, and defending champion Chris White took his first win of the season in race three.
Round three took the championship to Teretonga, the southernmost FIA-rated track in the world. It is also the shortest circuit in the championship, with a long start-finish straight leading into a daunting high-speed multiple-apex sweeper requiring maximum commitment from all drivers. The circuit is exposed to a strong sea breeze and weather changes often forces setup changes.
Chris White came to Teretonga with a slim three-point lead over Zach Blincoe. Josh Bethune was third in the points, and 14-year-old Ajay Giddy fourth. 
Here, Chris White scored first, with Justin Allen winning race two before White took the final race of the weekend.
Next, the championship took to Tony Quinn’s Highlands Motorsport Park at Cromwell. The 4.1km international-standard circuit is located near the township of Cromwell, approximately 50km from tourism mecca Queenstown.
Race one went to Hugo Allan, Chris White banking good points in third overall. 
Josh Bethune won an absolute thriller of a second race, with White a frustrating fifth.
A barnstormer of a feature race was a fitting end to a great weekend of racing at the fourth round and it was Arthur Broughan who took the spoils.
Fastest man all weekend, Broughan had to wait until the 12-lap feature to take a win.
After leading the series after the first round, success at Highlands put Broughan firmly back in the title hunt.
“I knew the start would be the most important part of the race, so I knew I had to take the lead out of turn one. I got that done, and the rest of the race was really, really good. I have to say thanks to the boys for a rapid car!”
Cooper Barnes was an outstanding second after his best performance of the weekend, while Chris White took yet another serious haul of points for third.
From there, the championship heads north for the penultimate round at Manfeild near Palmerston North and the final at Taupo on April 10-12.