Scoular turns pole into victory in FRegional Oceania’s Taupo opener

Photo: Toyota Gazoo Racing NZ

MTEC Motorsport’s Zack Scoular successfully converted his maiden single-seater pole position into victory in the Formula Regional Oceania season opener at Taupo.

It was very windy as the field embarked on the formation lap, and once returning to the grid they had a five-minute wait as the starting lights’s functionality were checked out. Another formation lap then followed, and despite being on the dirty side of the track a great start was made by Scoular and he led into turn one.

Arvid Lindblad immediately passed M2 Competition team-mate Nikita Johnson for third and tried going around the outside of Giles Motorsport’s Will Brown at turn one. He kept his nose alongside before tucking in behind at turn two.

Scoular ended lap one with a lead of a second to Brown, who remained under attack from Lindblad. On lap three his focus moved onto Scoular ahead, and he had brought the gap down to 0.715 seconds by lap five. But he could get no closer, and while Lindblad remained in his mirrors the leader was able to pull away and win by 2.069s.

“I’m honestly lost for words. First win in single-seaters, and what a grid to do it on. To do it in my home country, it’s honestly a pleasure. It’s so cool,” said an excited Scoular afterwards.

“We got a good launch, and then we were just doing quali lap, quali lap, quali lap. I expected there to be more deg[radation], but the tyre just stayed the whole race pretty much and didnt’ really feel like it affected me too much.”

Reigning Australian Supercars champion and single-seater returnee Brown, who was using Formula 1 driver Liam Lawson’s helmet, was as thrilled to finish second.

“It’s just cool to be back out there in an open-wheeler,” he beamed. “I’ve got to learn not to lock up. I was trying not to, but I kept doing it. I wasn’t sure what the tyre deg would be like; we had a fair bit in practice and surprisingly then it wasn’t too bad. So I’m pretty happy with the car overall, I think we had a really competitive car and it’s cool to be on the podium.”

Johnson began to pressure Lindblad late on, and their team-mates Matias Zagazeta, Michael Shin and Enzo Yeh ran in formation further behind.

The David Brabham-mentored Patrick Heuzenroeder was pushed wide at the opening corner of the race, dropping from sixth to last, but was back up to 12th on lap three thanks to a diving move at the chicane. He forced MTEC team-mate Nicholas Monteiro into mistakes before passing him at turn one on lap six, cleared Giles’ Alex Crosbie on lap nine then hunted down M2’s Sebastian Manson and got by him on lap 14.

Although he then cleared Josh Pierson, his team-mate moved back past on the final lap to finish eighth. Shawn Rashid, another MTEC driver, was 14th after stalling at the start.

Race results (17 laps)