Australian wins NZGP

Will Brown put his name in the record books with a fine victory in the 69th New Zealand Grand Prix.

He became the first Australian since Warwick Brown in 1975 to win, steering his Giles Motorsport Toyota FT60 to a two-second victory.

Brown came in ahead of the first Kiwi – and rookie champion for the 2025 Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship – Zack Scoular. 

Arvid Lindblad, series champion and Red Bull junior team member, was a fighting third driving a spare car.

It was a special moment for the 26-year-old Aussie reigning Supercars champion and team boss Stephen Giles. 

“I was nervous about the start,” says Brown, pictured above with the trophy and his team. “I knew if I could beat Broc Feeney away off the line, I had a chance to get ahead and control the race.

“I was rooted. The 10 ten laps were really hard and I was quite stressed trying not to make mistakes. I had a few loose moments and had to calm down, breath and get it back together. After that I pushed on and we started to set some really fast laps.

“Zack was super-fast and always there. But it was a cool race. When I saw the safety car come out, I knew I had to build a bigger gap. I’ve loved racing in the open wheelers and the New Zealand fans have been great.”

Aotearoa’s national anthem and a Scottish bagpipers helped build the atmosphere for the 27 laps around the 4.01km Highlands Motorsport Park on February 9. Conditions were windy, but the rain forecast failed to arrive so it was a dry track that greeted the 17 runners.

At the lights, Brown made the best getaway and did the jump on Feeney he had hoped for. Feeney didn’t get off the line well and had to slot in third behind Scoular. 

Shawn Rashid for Mtec Motorsport got away well to take fourth, while Lindblad made light work of running in an unfamiliar car and settled into fifth over the first few corners of lap one. 

As they surged into the daunting final curve of lap one, 29-year-old Rashid went around the outside of Feeney for third in with a breath-taking move.

Lap two was shaping nicely too until M2 Competition’s Enzo Yeh spun and returned to the track far too early, collecting James Lawley and putting both out. That brought out the safety car and it was lap six before the action resumed.

At the restart Brown and Scoular got the jump on Rashid. Further back Lindblad was looking very racy behind Feeney. 

On lap seven, Rashid went fastest and that put him on the tail of Mtec team-mate Scoular. Feeney, meanwhile, was warned for exceeding track limits on the same lap defending fourth from Lindblad.

Patrick Heuzenroeder was forced to pit at the end of lap nine and retire with damage to his rear suspension after light contact with the wall. 

At the hallway mark, Brown had stretched his lead over Scoular marginally, but it was still just under three-quarters of a second. Rashid was a further second back, with Feeney and Lindblad nose to tail a few car lengths behind him. 

On lap 15, Feeney made it past Rashid, who was seemingly hampered by a loose panel on the front of his FT60. 

Lindblad was quickly on Rashid’s tail and when Feeney made a big mistake at the forest hairpin, it allowed Rashid and Lindblad by. 

Brown, pictured above in the No 87 car, remained in control at the front even though it was Lindblad who was the man on the move as the race entered its final 10 laps. He finally passed Rashid on lap 17 and that put him up to third but five seconds down on Scoular. 

With seven to go Brown made his move to secure the race win, stretching his lead over Scoular to 1.3 seconds. 

Scoular could smell victory and put in his fastest laps of the race as he piled pressure on the leader. Brown responded with his fastest lap of the race on lap 24. Lindblad was still closing on both of them.

Brown, though, had done enough, and took the flag to become the eighth Australian to win New Zealand’s biggest single-seater race.

NZGP top six: Will Brown, Zack Scoular, Arvid Lindblad, Shawn Rashid, Michael Shin, Broc Feeney.

Championship top six: Arvind Linblad – 370 points, Zack Scoular – 314, Nikita Johnston – 305, Patrick Heuzenroeder – 264, Matias Zagazeta – 244, Sebastian Manson – 225.

Wins for Johnson & Heuzenroeder

American Nikita Johnson avoided a chaotic start to the second race over the weekend at Highlands to take his first win of the 2025 Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship.

Nicholas Monteiro and Shawn Rashid finished second and third respectively in the 18-lap race, making their first appearances on the podium.

For M2 Competition’s Johnson, the points from the race were equally as important as the victory as his main rival for second place overall, Zack Scoular, could only manage fourth place.

Australian Patrick Heuzenroeder beat three Red Bull superstars to claim his first victory in the 2025 Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship in race one.

A great start by the youngster, who will race GB3 this year as his single-seater career blossoms – set him up with a clear road ahead and he never looked back.

He soundly beat Arvid Lindblad by more than three seconds.