Photo: TGR NZ
Giles Motorsport’s Christian Mansell led the way in practice for the first round of the 2024 Formula Regional Oceania season at Taupo.
Mansell followed up his test-topping performance from Thursday, where he set the pre-season pace by 0.039 seconds over team-mate Kaleb Ngatoa, by topping the opening 30-minute practice session.
He set a 1m23.159s on his ninth and final lap to be fastest by 0.224s over Kiwi Motorsport’s Patick Woods-Toth, with Ngatoa a further 0.02s slower in third.
Only three other drivers however were within a second of Mansell’s pace, with Titus Sherlock (Kiwi) 0.65s behind in fourth, Alex Crosbie (Giles) 0.752s back in fifth and MTEC Motorsport’s Tommy Smith 0.9s off Mansell in sixth.
Unable to set a representative laptime in the session was M2 Competion’s Roman Bilinski. Despite completing 12 laps, his best laptime was 4.257s off the pace which was almost two seconds slower than anyone else.
Although Bilinski then went over three seconds slower in FP2 than he did in FP1, he actually topped the times in the second session with a 1m30.602s lap. That is because rain hit and nobody was able to improve their pace. M2 Competition’s Michael Shin and Liam Sceats were second and fastest after respectively setting a 1m31.040s and a 1m31.364s.
FP3 was dry but did still include some geographical disturbance with recorded earth tremors, and Mansell was back on top with a 1m23.918s. He was fastest by 0.248s over Ngatoa, with a gap of 0.497s to Woods-Toth in third, 0.683s to Sherlock in fourth and 0.701s to Crosbie in fifth.
M2 duo Niko Lacorte were the only two drivers to set personal bests down in ninth and 13th place, and that lifted them to 14th and 15th in the combined classification from practice.
Free practice results
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Christian Mansell | Giles Motorsport | 1m23.159s | 28 | |
| 2 | Patrick Woods-Toth | Kiwi Motorsport | 1m23.383s | +0.224s | 34 |
| 3 | Kaleb Ngatoa | Giles Motorsport | 1m23.403s | +0.244s | 34 |
| 4 | Titus Sherlock | Kiwi Motorsport | 1m23.809s | +0.650s | 35 |
| 5 | Alex Crosbie | Giles Motorsport | 1m23.911s | +0.752s | 30 |
| 6 | Tommy Smith | MTEC Motorsport | 1m24.059s | +0.900s | 39 |
| 7 | Michael Shin | M2 Competition | 1m24.329s | +1.170s | 34 |
| 8 | Gerrard Xie | M2 Competition | 1m24.330s | +1.171s | 37 |
| 9 | Landan Matriano Lim | Giles Motorsport | 1m24.669s | +1.510s | 41 |
| 10 | Kaden Probst | MTEC Motorsport | 1m24.701s | +1.542s | 36 |
| 11 | Jett Bowling | Kiwi Motorsport | 1m24.701s | +1.542s | 39 |
| 12 | Liam Sceats | M2 Competition | 1m24.711s | +1.552s | 38 |
| 13 | Elliott Cleary | MTEC Motorsport | 1m24.832s | +1.673s | 33 |
| 14 | Niko Lacorte | M2 Competition | 1m24.929s | +1.770s | 37 |
| 15 | Roman Bilinski | M2 Competition | 1m25.043s | +1.884s | 37 |
| 16 | Jake Bonilla | Kiwi Motorsport | 1m25.054s | +1.895s | 39 |
| 17 | Lucas Fecury | MTEC Motorsport | 1m25.514s | +2.355s | 34 |