Slater snags Friday Highlands win as Wood takes rookie title

The opening contest of the New Zealand Grand Prix weekend at Highlands acted as a make-up race for Race 3 of the Teretonga weekend, which was rained out.

From pole position, Slater got the holeshot into the bus stop chicane to lead M2 Competition teammate Ugochukwu and Le of Hitech TGR through the Southern Loop.

Sixth place starter Zack Scoular of MTEC Motorsport made quick work of Kiwi Motorsport’s Yevan David on the opening lap, putting a pass on the Sri Lankan into the Turn 9 hairpin.

At the end of Lap 1, Louis Sharp dive-bombed Le off the bridge to snatch third place away into Turn 11. That would be as high as the MTEC driver got.

By mid-race distance, the top three began to gap Le and Scoular in fourth and fifth.

In seventh, Wood began piling pressure on David. Come Lap 11, David finally faltered and slid wide out of the Southern Loop to drop from sixth to eighth.

Once relinquished, Wood set the fastest lap of the race in clear air.

Slater picked up the pace in the final stanza. A half-second lead grew by nearly a second, establishing a handy gap over his M2 Competition teammate.

All told, Slater was 1.9s clear of Ugochukwu while Sharp wound up 3.2s back in third.

“Not a bad way to finish a Friday,” said Slater.

“Honestly a little bit weird doing a race today, but pace was good.

“I knew what we had to do at the start and obviously with the wind it picked up and made the car completely different to what it was earlier in FP3.

“A tricky race for all, but we came out on top. That’s the main thing.”

With three races remaining, the gap between Ugochukwu (268 points) and Slater (250 points) stands at 18 points.

Sharp sits third on 234 points while Nakamura and Wood are on 223 and 222 points apiece.

Despite the title picture constantly changing, Slater said he wasn’t thinking about the points permutations.

“I’ll just keep on trying to win as many races as possible until Sunday afternoon, and then see where we end up,” said Slater.

With Kalle Rovanpera electing to miss Friday’s race due to illness, Wood put enough points on the Finnish driver to secure the Rookie of the Year title.

The Formula Regional Oceania Trophy continues on Saturday with qualifying, which will set the grid for Race 1 and Race 3.

Results: Formula Regional Oceania Trophy Highlands, Round 3 Race 3 make-up