Supercars champion Will Brown wins the 2025 New Zealand Grand Prix

Photo; TGR NZ

Australian Supercars champion Will Brown won the 2025 New Zealand Grand Prix in the season-ending Formula Regional Oceania race at Highlands Motorsport Park.

Giles Motorsport’s Brown (using Liam Lawson’s helmet) streaked into the lead as single-seater newcomer and Supercars team-mate Broc Feeney was weak off the line from pole position, and his MTEC Motorsport team-mate Zack Scoular also went past him at turn one.

Brown already had a gap as he braked for the turns two/three chicane, and later in the lap Feeney started pressuring Scoular as M2 Competition’s Arvid Lindblad – using a new tub after his car was destroyed in a lap one crash the previous race and the #1 as the newly crowned champion – almost went into the back of MTEC’s Shawn Rashid in the battle for fourth.

Lindbld tried a move at the end of the lap but Rashid managed to find room to squeeze past Feeney instead. Before he could have another go at getting into the top four, the safety car was called our and Brown’s lead of almost three seconds was eliminated.

M2’s Enzo Yeh had gone off, and when he had rejoined he was struck by Kiwi Motorsport’s James Lawley as he flew past. Yeh immediately parked up, and Lawley initially did the same before getting to the pits.

Racing resumed on lap six, and the top two made the jump on everyone else. This time Brown only built a 0.6-second lead, which he maintained with small variations until lap 16 when he finally grew it to 0.8s.

Lindblad attempted diving passed on Feeney at turn 14 on laps eight, 10 and 14, and just behind them was MTEC’s Patrick Heuzenroeder until he tapped a wall on lap nine and retired in the pits with damage.

Feeney overtook Rashid at the end of lap 14, but then he put wheels off on the next lap at turn 14 and dropped two places, with M2’s Michael Shin passing him at the turn 15/16 chicane too.

Lindblad finally passed Rashid (who had a loose nose panel) on lap 17, locking up as he dived down down his inside at turn 14 and getting the move complete before the next corner. He had 4.25s to make up on Scoular with 10 laps to go, and set the fastest lap two laps later as he chased him down.

Brown led by 1.4s after 21 laps, with Lindblad a further 2.9s behind, and two laps later Scoular reduced Brown’s gap to 1.1s as they entered the uncharted territory of the race’s extended distance.

Brown responded on lap 24 to pull 1.3s ahead, as Lindblad trailed Scoular by 2.3s, then managed his gap to the finish while still pushing.

He admitted he “was nervous about” the start and spent several hours thinking on how he could nail it, and admitted “I had a big moment on lap one through turn 10”. There was also praise for championship runner-up Scoular: “Zack was super fast. He was always there, [I] didn’t want to make a mistake.”

M2’s Matias Zagazeta exceeded track limits repeatedly, getting a five-second penalty by lap 11, a drive-through on lap 16 and a stop-go on lap 22. Kiwi’s Nicolas Stati received fa ive-second penalty on lap 21, and Lawley rejoined the race several laps down before retirning.

Race results (27 laps)