Motor Sport
It was very much a weekend of two halves for Invercargill driver Alex Crosbie in his Castrol Toyota FT-60 during Round 3 of the 2025 Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship (CTFROC) at Manfeild Circuit Chris Amon in Feilding this weekend.
The round started well as Crosbie topped the timesheets in one of the two test sessions held on Thursday. He then consistently ran near the top of the times during Friday practice, recording times good enough for sixth, fifth and fourth across the three sessions.
On Saturday morning Crosbie set the fifth fastest time in qualifying for the first race of the weekend later that day with a time just .291 second off that of UK driver Arvid Lindblad on pole.
In that race, from fifth on the grid, Crosbie was involved in a frantic first lap after what he described as an “average start”, crossing the line at the end of the opening lap seventh and maintaining that position all through the race as he held off fellow kiwi Zack Scoular. “Our pace was pretty decent but passing is pretty tough at Manfeild,” he said.
Seventh place in the opener gave Crosbie a front row starting position for the second race early on Sunday afternoon alongside Scoular but before that he participated in qualifying on Sunday morning for the feature event, the Dan Higgins Trophy Race, which was to be the third race of the weekend.
The Sunday qualifying session started out wet with the track drying but Crosbie struggled with the balance of the car in the rain. “I haven’t raced in the rain much in the last twelve months,” he said, after qualifying fourteenth.
Before the feature he contested the second race of the round, starting on the front row alongside Scoular. He got a good start but Scoular took the lead at the first corner of the race. Crosbie held second for several laps before the track started drying out. “The wet tyres started overheating and a couple of cars got past.” Crosbie was battling with Nicholas Monteiro of Brazil and fellow kiwi Sebastian Manson for fourth and fifth when Monteiro slowed. “I got caught in the aerowash and ran wide onto the slippery stuff,” said Alex. “I spun and Sebastian couldn’t avoid me and clipped my front wing. My car stalled and took several minutes to restart and I had to pit for a new wing.” Crosbie eventually finished in sixteenth place, two laps down.
The finale also started in wet conditions and from his fourteenth place starting position Crosbie made up several places. However, after a safety car period, the track started drying again causing the tyres to again overheat, dropping Crosbie to fifteenth at the finish.
The next round of the championship is at Crosbie’s home circuit, Teretonga Park in Invercargill, next weekend. “I’m looking forward to racing at my home track although I haven’t done too many laps there in the past couple of years. Hopefully it comes back pretty easily. It will take a bit to get used to the FT-60 around Teretonga but I am looking forward to racing in front of friends, family and many of my sponsors and I hope to perform well for them.”
Support for Alex Crosbie’s campaign in the 2025 Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship comes from Castrol, Stresscrete Southland, the Peter H McMillan Legacy Fund, Kiwi Skips, Invercargill Hose and Hydraulics, Kiwi Driver Fund and Golden Homes in the Southern Lakes.