Star graduates shine bright in Baku

Another huge weekend for graduates from the Castrol Toyota FR Oceania and Castrol TRS Championships saw some stellar performances in F1 and F2.

Man of the moment Franco Colapinto – third place finisher in the 2020 Castrol TRS Championship – built on his promising F1 debut at the Italian Grand Prix with an even better one in Baku and the Azerbaijan Grand Prix at the weekend.

Colapinto qualified his Williams in an excellent ninth and went on to secure his first points in the Formula One World Championship with an impressive drive through to eighth place just a couple of seconds behind team mate Alex Albon.

As well as being the latest NZ graduate to score points in a Grand Prix, Colapinto also became the first Argentinian to finish in the top 10 since Carlos Reutemann – also in a Williams – back in 1982.

There were eye0catching performances in the Formula 2 races as well, with Richard Verschoor – a nine time winner in New Zealand in 2016 and 2017 – winning the feature race around the challenging circuit and 2024 graduate Christian Mansell scoring his first points with two top ten results in Baku.