Lucas Auer remains the man to beat in the Toyota Racing Series as action got underway at Taupo for round three, the points leader posting the fastest time in Thursday practice.
The Austrian was second quickest in the opening session behind defending series champion Nick Cassidy. The Kiwi comes into the weekend lying third in the standings with ground to make up on Auer and closest rival Felix Serralles.
Third and fourth fastest respectively were Auer’s Brazilian teammates at Giles Motorsport, Bruno Bonifacio and Pipo Derani. Damon Leitch was fifth with Tatiana Calderon a strong sixth ahead of Steijn Schothorst and Jann Mardenborough. Serralles was only ninth with Alex Lynn also having a quiet start to the weekend in tenth.
In the second session Auer lowered the benchmark from Cassidy’s 1m25.498s to a 1m24.511s. That was two tenths quicker than second-quickest Bonifacio, while Leitch was third. Calderon continued her impressive showing with fourth place, while Lynn improved to fifth. Schothorst and Serralles were next ahead of Cassidy who failed to improve on his earlier time. Tanart Sathienthirakul and Derani rounded out the top ten.
Three further practice sessions follow on Friday before the action gets underway for real with qualifying and the first race on Saturday.
Combined times
| Pos | Driver | Team | Session 1 | Session 2 | PB Pos |
| 1 | Lucas Auer | Giles Motorsport | 1:25.649 | 1:24.511 | 1 |
| 2 | Bruno Bonifacio | Giles Motorsport | 1:25.875 | 1:24.732 | 2 |
| 3 | Damon Leitch | Victory Motor Racing | 1:26.134 | 1:25.026 | 3 |
| 4 | Tatiana Calderon | ETEC Motorsport | 1:26.162 | 1:25.268 | 4 |
| 5 | Alex Lynn | M2 Competition | 1:26.484 | 1:25.318 | 5 |
| 6 | Steijn Schothorst | M2 Competition | 1:26.311 | 1:25.394 | 6 |
| 7 | Nick Cassidy | M2 Competition | 1:25.498 | 1:25.610 | 1 |
| 8 | Felix Serralles | Giles Motorsport | 1:26.483 | 1:25.576 | 7 |
| 9 | Tanart Sathienthirakul | ETEC Motorsport | 1:26.947 | 1:25.869 | 9 |
| 10 | Pipo Derani | Giles Motorsport | 1:25.967 | 1:25.940 | 4 |
| 11 | Jann Mardenborough | ETEC Motorsport | 1:26.415 | 1:25.979 | 8 |
| 12 | Andrew Tang | ETEC Motorsport | 1:26.834 | 1:26.084 | 12 |
| 13 | Nicholas Latifi | Giles Motorsport | 1:26.816 | 1:26.390 | 11 |
| 14 | Michael Scott | Victory Motor Racing | 1:27.832 | 1:26.549 | 14 |
| 15 | Dennis Olsen | M2 Competition | 1:27.090 | 1:26.742 | 15 |
| 16 | Spike Goddard | M2 Competition | 1:26.889 | 1:27.273 | 13 |
| 17 | Akash Nandy | ETEC Motorsport | 1:27.971 | 1:27.789 | 16 |
| 18 | Ryan Cullen | M2 Competition | No time | No time | 18 |