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Rooney Takes First Toyota 86 Win
Rookie Jackson Rooney took his first win in the Toyota 86 Championship in fine style this afternoon at the Hampton Downs Motorsport Park.
Rooney started from the front row, but it took him until lap four to find a way past pole position sitter William Exton. After that he was able to cruise to a relatively comfortable three second victory.
“William is my team mate so I played it smart and didn’t do anything dumb,” said a delighted Rooney afterwards.
“Once I was past I just focussed on my markers. We we’rent that strong in testing so it’s great that the team have managed to find the pace in the car.”
“I have been thinking about this all season so to get it as we near the end, it feels amazing.”
Behind the top two, championship challenger Tom Bewley once again showed great pace to work his way through from seventh on the grid to take the final place on the podium. He made his way quickly through the pack and was on the tail of a duelling Exton and championship leader Hunter Robb.
It took until lap ten in a frenetic battle for him to find a way past Robb and into third place. Lap ten wasn’t a good one for Robb all round, as Hayden Bakkerus also found a way around him for fourth.
Behind Robb in fifth, Justin Allen had a solid run through to sixth while William Morton avoided the mid field dramas on the highly competitive Toyota 86 pack and survived to record seventh place and his best ever result in the Toyota 86 Championship.
He finished ahead of Lockie Bloxsom in eighth, with Alice Buckley making good progress in the race to jump from 13th to ninth by the flag. Tyler Collins started fifth but fell back in his first Toyota 86 race to eventually finish tenth.
2023-2024 Toyota 86 Championship – Round 5 Hampton Downs – Race 1
| 1 | 30 | Jackson Rooney | Race Lab Drivers Academy |
| 2 | 42 | William Exton | Race Lab Drivers Academy |
| 3 | 4 | Tom Bewley | Mackenzie Motorsport |
| 4 | 20 | Hayden Bakkerus | MacKenzie Motorsport |
| 5 | 69 | Hunter Robb | Action Motorsport |
| 6 | 99 | Justin Allen | Allen Racing Team |
| 7 | 11 | William Morton | iMac Race Engineering |
| 8 | 23 | Lockie Bloxsom | iMac Race Engineering |
| 9 | 3 | Alice Buckley | Race Lab Drivers Academy |
| 10 | 77 | Tyler Collins | Action Motorsport |
| 11 | 50 | Ryan Denize | MacKenzie Motorsport |
| 12 | 81 | Cormac Murphy | Race Lab Drivers Academy |
| 13 | 55 | Christina Orr-West | Dayle ITM Racing |
| 14 | 22 | John Penny | Action Motorsport |
| 15 | 88 | Noel Simpson | Action Motorsport |
| 16 | 75 | Tayler Bryant | Action Motorsport |
| 17 | 5 | Breanna Morris | Dayle ITM Racing |
| 18 | 87 | Summer Rintoule | Action Motorsport |
| 19 | 8 | Thomas Mallard | Crème Racing |
| 20 | 333 | Caleb Byers | James Marshall Motorsport |
| 21 | 73 | Harry Townshend | Bayswater Motorsport |
2023-2024 Toyota 86 Championship
Round 1 – November 17-19 – Taupo International Motorsport Park
Round 2 – January 26-28 – Manfeild – Circuit Chris Amon
Round 3 – February 9-11 – Euromarque Motorsport Park
Round 4 – February 16-18 – Highlands Motorsport Park – NZ Grand Prix
Round 5 – March 15-17 – Hampton Downs Motorsport Park
Round 6 – April 19-21 – Taupo International Motorsport Park – Supercars
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