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Photo: Joel Hanks<\/p>\n
Ugo Ugochukwu kicked off 2026\u2019s junior single-seater action by going fastest in Formula Regional Oceania\u2019s season-opening qualifying session at Hampton Downs.<\/p>\n
There were three free practice sessions on Friday, and M2 Competition\u2019s Ugochukwu topped the first by the slimmest margin. He set a 1m30.047s to pip Hitech GP\u2019s Kanato Le by 0.001 seconds, and MTEC Motorsport\u2019s Ryan Wood was just 0.003s off in third. Hitech\u2019s Jin Nakamura trailed by 0.195s in fourth, as a second covered the top 14.<\/p>\n
A 1m30.234s earned tin-top star and single-seater debutant Wood first place in FP2, with a tiny 0.042s advantage over Nakmura and 0.089s to Le. Ugochukwu was fourth, 0.175s off, and team-mate Freddie Slater was a further 0.013s back.<\/p>\n
Wood lowered the pace to 1m29.764s in FP3, and this time had a 0.287s gap to Slater in second. Nakamura, MTEC\u2019s Louis Sharp and HMD Motorsports with TJ Speed\u2019s James Wharton were the only other drivers within half a second of him. Two-time World Rally champion Kalle Rovanpera was 15th in practice.<\/p>\n
Qualifying took place on Saturday, and with 19 cars on track traffic posed a risk throughout the 15-minute session.<\/p>\n
At the halfway point, Ugochukwu led Sharp, Slater, Wharton and Wood. Many drivers had not set representative laptimes, while the provisional poleman had already posted a 1m29.953s.<\/p>\n
He improved to 1m29.794s next time by, but Slater moved ahead by 0.102s. The Briton was only top for 13s before Wood set a 1m29.612s, and Nakamura rose to third with a lap 0.063s quicker than Ugochukwu\u2019s.<\/p>\n
On the following lap, Ugochukwu made a half-second gain to reclaim top spot and he remained there to the finish. With two minutes remaining he lowered the pace to 1m29.267s, with Slater 0.142s behind, then traffic meant he bailed out of his next flyer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a good couple of days, pace has been good. I was pretty confident coming into quali, knowing I just had to put a good lap together,\u201d said Ugochukwu.<\/p>\n
Sharp snatched second place just before the chequered flag waved, lapping 0.007s shy of pole. Le and Nakamura shuffled Wood down to sixth by setting personal bests, but he then moved back up to fifth. Rovanpera qualified 1.04s off the pace in 16th.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had two laps probably I think within two hundredths of a pole, so it was a shame not either one of them was quite enough,\u201d mused Sharp.<\/p>\n
Slater \u201chad a few moments out there which weren\u2019t optimal\u201d and reflected on Hampton Downs\u2019 challenges.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe track\u2019s super bumpy, so there\u2019s never the perfect lap. There never will be around here. So it\u2019s just the little fine margins that obviously cost a lot. And also the tyres get quite hot here as well. Especially through the first and second sector, and then when you get to the hairpins where the traction becomes quite difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n
Qualifying results<\/p>\n
Pos
\nDriver
\nTeam
\nTime
\nGap
\nLaps<\/p>\n
1
\nUgo Ugochukwu
\nM2 Competition
\n1m29.267s<\/p>\n
9<\/p>\n
2
\nLouis Sharp
\nMTEC Motorsport
\n1m29.274s
\n+0.007s
\n9<\/p>\n
3
\nFreddie Slater
\nM2 Competition
\n1m29.409s
\n+0.142s
\n9<\/p>\n
4
\nKanato Le
\nHitech GP
\n1m29.496s
\n+0.229s
\n8<\/p>\n
5
\nRyan Wood
\nMTEC Motorsport
\n1m29.560s
\n+0.293s
\n9<\/p>\n
6
\nJin Nakamura
\nHitech GP
\n1m29.563s
\n+0.296s
\n8<\/p>\n
7
\nZack Scoular
\nMTEC Motorsport
\n1m29.731s
\n+0.464s
\n9<\/p>\n
8
\nJames Wharton
\nHMD w\/ TJ Speed
\n1m29.777s
\n+0.510s
\n8<\/p>\n
9
\nYevan David
\nKiwi Motorsport
\n1m29.792s
\n+0.525s
\n8<\/p>\n
10
\nErnesto Rivera
\nM2 Competition
\n1m29.844s
\n+0.577s
\n9<\/p>\n
11
\nYuanpu Cui
\nMTEC Motorsport
\n1m29.852s
\n+0.585s
\n8<\/p>\n
12
\nJack Taylor
\nGiles Motorsport
\n1m29.998s
\n+0.731s
\n8<\/p>\n
13
\nNolan Allaer
\nGiles Motorsport
\n1m30.058s
\n+0.791s
\n8<\/p>\n
14
\nSebastian Manson
\nM2 Competition
\n1m30.154s
\n+0.887s
\n9<\/p>\n
15
\nFionn McLaughlin
\nHitech GP
\n1m30.241s
\n+0.974s
\n8<\/p>\n
16
\nKalle Rovanpera
\nHitech GP
\n1m30.307s
\n+1.040s
\n9<\/p>\n
17
\nCooper Shipman
\nKiwi Motorsport
\n1m30.353s
\n+1.086s
\n8<\/p>\n
18
\nCadi Baptista
\nHMD w\/ TJ Speed
\n1m30.777s
\n+1.510s
\n8<\/p>\n
19
\nTrevor LaTourrette
\nHMD w\/ TJ Speed
\n1m31.765s
\n+2.498s
\n8<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"9 Photo: Joel Hanks Ugo Ugochukwu kicked off 2026\u2019s junior single-seater action by going fastest in Formula Regional…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,214396,214397,806,805,803,804,214398,40248,85],"class_list":["post-403929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-formula-regional-oceania","tag-hampton-downs","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-mtec-motorsport","tag-ryan-wood","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}