This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Toyota Racing Series, which has run under the Formula Regional Oceania banner since 2023. Feeder Series spoke to Nicolas Caillol, the manager of FR Oceania, and Tony Quinn, the owner of the Tony Quinn Foundation, at Highlands Motorsport Park about how the series and the New Zealand racing scene as a whole have developed over the past two decades.

By Kaylene Lau 

FR Oceania is typically the first junior single-seater championship held in a new year. The series offers five consecutive weeks of racing at tracks around New Zealand. As a winter series – although it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere – the championship is an attractive option for drivers to get more time in the car to prepare for their main season in Europe. 

Multiple current F1 drivers have raced in the series when it was still known as TRS. Lance Stroll, Lando Norris and Liam Lawson are all TRS champions, while Yuki Tsunoda finished fourth in the 2020 season. 

Aside from giving drivers extra preparation time for their main season, the championship has also given young New Zealand drivers to showcase their talents. 

Nicolas Caillol has been Toyota Gazoo Racing New Zealand’s motorsport manager since 2021 and has overseen the championship for the last three years. The Frenchman was a data and race engineer in Europe before his move to New Zealand. On what makes the racing scene in New Zealand special, Caillol said showcasing youngsters and giving them opportunities has been key.

“I think the New Zealand scene is quite interesting in a way that’s very particular, of having youngsters start to drive at 12 years old, 13 years old, like from [Formula] First to Formula Ford,” Caillol told Feeder Series.

“So it’s giving a good amount of talents from a young age [the chance to] be racing and learning of the racecraft. That’s the thing that makes the difference to other drivers compared to other drivers, that they can start that single-seater racing at a young age and then learn those basics.”

Upon stepping up from karting, most young New Zealand drivers aged 12 or older typically enter Formula First, a domestic variant of FVee, before then graduating to FFord. Scott Dixon, Shane van Gisbergen, Brendon Hartley, Mitch Evans and Lawson – among New Zealand’s most prominent drivers over the past two decades – have each raced in both series.

“All the talent we have here in New Zealand, we get through the championship. When you look at Mitch Evans, Nick Cassidy, Marcus Armstrong, Liam Lawson, all those things have been very inspiring for those young drivers,” Caillol said. “They went through TRS and then had a career on afterwards, so [it’s] a speedy and strong scene.” 

Evans and Cassidy are both two-time TRS champions. The former won the title in 2010 and 2011, the latter in 2012 and 2013. Both have gone on to have successful careers in Formula E and are currently teammates at reigning champions Jaguar. 

Armstrong raced in TRS in 2017, finishing fourth in the championship. He is contesting his third season in IndyCar with Meyer Shank Racing after spending two seasons with Chip Ganassi Racing. In his first season in the series, he took home Rookie of the Year honours with 214 points.

Lawson, the 2019 TRS champion and 2020 runner-up, will contest his first full season of F1 this year despite already having 11 race starts. Lawson impressed in his partial campaigns in the series in both 2023 and 2024 with AlphaTauri and RB, and he then earned a promotion to Red Bull in 2025, replacing Sergio Pérez. 

“The background of Liam was not a lot of money on the family’s side. It was just being fixed to Toyota. Being able to do that series and that move in 2019, getting that moment from Red Bull changed his fame,” Caillol explained. “If you have the opportunity to perform here in TRS or CTFROC, it’s an opportunity for you to maybe become noticed at the world stage and go further.”

Caillol said Lawson was filling an ‘inspirational role for youngsters in New Zealand’. 

F3-bound Louis Sharp is one of the young New Zealand talents hoping to follow in Lawson’s footsteps. The 17-year-old has never competed in FR Oceania but went through the Formula First and Formula Ford ranks from 2020 to 2022, last racing in the 2022 South Island F1600 Series. Overseas, though, he has won the 2023 British F4 and 2024 GB3 titles en route to becoming the lone New Zealander on the F1 support bill grid in 2025. 

“It’s definitely a privilege to be over here representing New Zealand, especially to be following in the footsteps of Liam,” Sharp said. “He’s a close friend –I know him well – so it’s awesome to see him doing what he’s doing in the world of Formula 1. 

“For me, it’s my goal to join him there and to work hard [and to] show the world how good New Zealand can be. It’s a privilege to be in the position I am.” 

The key figure helping Sharp up the ladder is Australian businessman David Dicker, the CEO of Rodin Cars and owner of the Rodin Motorsport team with whom Sharp races. Rodin Cars had helped fund Lawson’s career progression alongside Red Bull. Last autumn, the brand partnered with national governing body Motorsport NZ to create a path for NZ Formula Ford champions to earn fully funded tests – and perhaps even race seats – in Rodin’s F4 fleet.

Dicker’s efforts have become recognised internationally in recent years, but he is not alone in bankrolling and promoting young talent from Aotearoa such as Lawson. Enter Tony Quinn, an entrepreneur, circuit owner, event promoter and racing driver and a towering figure in the domestic motorsport scene.

Quinn is the leader and founder of National Racing Group Promotions, which organisation promotes the NextGen NZ package of which FR Oceania is a part. Quinn also owns Taupō, Hampton Downs and Highlands, three of the five tracks on which the series raced this year.

Quinn – who hails from Aberdeen, Scotland – said FR Oceania had ‘always been a good series’ and made note of several F1 drivers who had taken part.

“I’ve met Lando Norris when he won the grand prix here in New Zealand,” he added. “Daniil Kyvat and Yuki Tsunoda were here. It is a good [series] and there’s no doubt that Arvid Lindblad will be in F1 in the next couple of years. But I hope that their memories of New Zealand will be good.”  

Lindblad is the series’ newest champion, taking his first championship title and the 18 Super Licence points that came with it with two races to go. As the champion, Lindblad was allowed to race with the number 1 on his car at the season-ending New Zealand Grand Prix, just as Lawson did through the 2020 season as he fought to defend his title. 

“New Zealand’s always been a melting pot for young kids to come along and be good at racing cars,” Quinn said. “I don’t know why it’s so good, but it is. I’m just grateful to be involved and to make things happen.”  

Quinn has supported young New Zealand talents through the Tony Quinn Foundation since 2021. Lawson was the first recipient of a grant from the foundation. Dubai-based New Zealander Zack Scoular, who participated in FR Oceania this year, was the most recent driver to receive support from the foundation after winning its shootout at Hampton Downs last November. 

“Their careers will be entirely up to them, to be fair. And they’ve got to take over now and do all the hard work,” Quinn said. “We’ve been involved in the gambling bit when you take a gamble on somebody that they’re going to do a good job.

“The ones that have proven they’ve done a good job, now it’s up to them to show their skills on the world stage. But I know that if they do well here, they’ll do well on the world stage. It’s been proven.” 

Scoular put his NZ$70,000 scholarship towards an entry in the FR Oceania championship and finished second overall in the standings with MTEC Motorsport. The 17-year-old also won the Rookie Cup and the Trans-Tasman Cup.

Scoular has now headed to Europe to contest the 2025 Eurocup-3 season with Palou Motorsport. 

“It’s obviously helped them financially,” Quinn said about the foundation. “But also we like to give them life advice,because when these young kids win a series, win a grand prix, and we put them overseas to a different country with different people, it can be hard for them.

“We open many doors for them, and then it’s up to them. You know, I just spoke to Zack Scoular, and I’m so pleased that he’s continuing with the Tony Quinn Foundation branding on his suit and his car in Europe. So that says to me that they’re proud to wear the brand, which is really good.” 

The series underwent a name change in 2023 from the Toyota Racing Series to FR Oceania – formally the Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship – to join other FR championships around the world.

Caillol said the plan for TGR NZ was to make the championship as ‘relevant’ to all categories as they could, including those in the United States on the IndyCar ladder.

“The choice of the car has been very critical on that side from the US markets, even when it was the FT-50 and the Toyota Racing Series. So in the CTFROC we [found] out the car can cover everything in the US because it’s a nice pathway or preparation for Indy NXT, and it’s the same level as the USF Pro car.

“So all kinds of drivers that go to USF 2000, USF Pro, Indy NXT, or F4 to FR in the US, that’s relevant for them.”

TGR NZ and the organisers of the USF Pro Championships, Andersen Promotions, have partnered since 2019. Through the partnership, the top three drivers in USF Juniors, USF2000 and USF Pro 2000 receive a waived entry fee of $NZ 7,500 to compete in FR Oceania. Drivers who compete in all five rounds of FR Oceania also have their entry fees waived for either the Chris Griffis Memorial Test in the fall or the Spring Training test early in the following year.

Since then, the series has seen an increase in drivers from the US. This year, five American drivers competed in FR Oceania, including 2024 USF Pro 2000 runner-up Nikita Johnson, who ultimately finished third in the championship.

The partnership has also helped young New Zealand talents head to the US to progress further in their careers. Sebastian Manson, who finished sixth in the championship this year, will be racing in his first season of USF Pro 2000 this year with TJ Speed Motorsports. Five other international drivers who raced this year are set to continue competing in North America in 2025. 

Caillol said the series’ aim for the future remains to ‘attract the best drivers’. 

“For us, it’s just staying what we’re doing at that level and trying to promote as much as we can,” he said. “[Among] Kiwi drivers, there’s a bunch of talent in Formula First and Formula Ford [who] will come up in the next couple of years.

“It’s key for us to keep that championship, keep attracting the best drivers from the US and from Europe, and to be able to offer Kiwi drivers the very low cost to benchmark themselves against the best and be able to promote themselves and go to the next step.” 

Additional reporting by Tori Turner 

Header photo credit: Toyota Gazoo Racing NZ