Photo: Bruce Jenkins/TGR NZ
Ryan Wood scored his first single-seater win in the opening Formula Regional Oceania race of the weekend at Taupo before James Wharton triumphed in race two.
Wood and Wharton were the pacesetters across Friday’s three practice sessions, with Wood topping two of them and Wharton – who was never outside of the top three – edging him by 0.094 seconds to lead the other.
Supercars regular Wood managed to carry his form into Saturday morning’s qualifying session to take pole position by just 0.013s over championship leader Ugo Ugochukwu.
When the lights went out at the start of the first race, Ugochukwu got the better launch to nose ahead on the run to Turn 1, but Wood was able to hold the lead on the inside line.
After soaking up the early pressure from Ugochukwu in the opening laps, Wood set the fastest lap to start pulling away, and eventually took victory by 2.5s.
As he dropped back from Wood, Ugochukwu fell into the clutches of Zack Scoular, but was given the chance to escape when Scoular locked up into Turn 11 and run wide on lap eight. The mistake allowed Freddie Slater to get a run down the long back straight and get past, with Scoular locking up again into the chicane in his attempt to hold on.
Scoular would continue locking his brakes under pressure from Louis Sharp, who eventually found a way past for fourth place on the penultimate lap.
Wharton finished sixth and thus lined up third on the reversed grid for race two behind Kanato Le and Ernesto Rivera.
Le managed to hold off Rivera in the first corner of the race before Wharton then got a run around the outside of Rivera in Turn 2 to take second.
After sustained pressure forced Le into mistakes in Turn 11, Wharton took the lead using the push-to-pass down the back straight on lap seven. He would go on to win by 3.5s over Rivera, who had passed Le a few laps later.
Ugochukwu also got by Le to boost his championship lead with another podium finish in third while Le tumbled down the order, crossing the line eighth. Sharp won an entertaining battle with Wood and Slater for fourth.
Slater received a five-second time penalty for forcing Scoular off track at the start of the race. Scoular went on to pit and claim the fastest lap of the race, giving him pole for race three.
Results round-up
Race 1 (18 laps)
1 Ryan Wood MTEC Motorsport 25m25.001s
2 Ugo Ugochukwu M2 Competition +2.529s
3 Freddie Slater M2 Competition +5.638s
4 Louis Sharp MTEC Motorsport +8.758s
5 Zack Scoular MTEC Motorsport +9.596s
6 James Wharton HMD w/ TJ Speed +10.594s
7 Ernesto Rivera M2 Competition +13.107s
8 Kanato Le Hitech GP +16.176s
9 Jin Nakamura Hitech GP +29.235s
10 Yuanpu Cui MTEC Motorsport +29.522s
Pole: Wood, 1m23.258s
Fastest lap: Wood, 1m23.735s
Race 2 (18 laps)
1 Wharton 25m31.190s
2 Rivera +3.587s
3 Ugochukwu +3.719s
4 Sharp +7.150s
5 Wood +7.578s
6 Cui +11.408s
7 Le +12.707s
8 Slater +13.938s
9 Cadi Baptista HMD w/ TJ Speed +18.880s
10 Kalle Rovanpera Hitech GP +19.031s
FL: Scoular, 1m23.095s
Championship standings
1 Ugochukwu 160 2 Le 112 3 Nakamura 111 4 Slater 109 5 Sharp 108 6 Rivera 93 7 Wood 88 8 Wharton 86 9 Scoular 85 10 Cui 62