Top team chasing trophy
Top US racing team HMD Motorsport has announced it is joining forces with TJ Speed Motorsports to field a three-car line-up in the 2026 Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Trophy.
The team will race under the name HMD Motorsports with TJ Speed and will join the New Zealand championship’s existing four teams for the new-look four-round series when it begins in January 2026.
HMD has campaigned in Indy Lights and Indy NXT since its inception in 2019, and had an alliance in the NTT IndyCar Series from 2022 to 2023, and in the Formula Regional Americas championship in 2020.
It has won the Indy NXT team’s championship twice and been runner-up twice, as well as clinching two drivers’ titles since 2021.
The New Zealand series has served as a development platform for many HMD-affiliated drivers, past and present – including Josh Pierson, Liam Sceats, Tommy Smith, Callum Hedge, Bryce Aron and Nikita Johnson – all of whom have progressed to race in Indy NXT.
Mike Maurini, HMD Motorsports team president, says: “We are looking to strengthen the Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Trophy grid in New Zealand by prioritising a competitive driver line-up that represents HMD and TJ Speed.
“With two strong and growing programmes, joining forces to compete abroad, we will be able to combine our efforts and help get some drivers that could potentially compete with us in 2025, with some additional track time.”
IndyCar drivers Santino Ferruci, Devlin DeFrancesco, Jacob Abel, Louis Foster, Marcus Armstrong and Robert Schwartzman are all graduates of New Zealand’s premier single-seater championship.
Nicolas Caillol, motorsport manager at Toyota Gazoo Racing NZ, says: “We have built a strong reputation in the United States as a great feeder series for IndyCar feeder series such as Indy NXT and the USF Pro Championships.
“Removing the clashes in the NZ racing calendar and the US testing calendar cleared the way for more teams in key markets to join our championship, and the speed with which HMD Motorsports and TJ Motorsports have committed is reflective of the interest in New Zealand. Their addition will only make that pathway stronger both ways.”
