Ugochukwu wins crash-affected Hampton Downs finale

The American was unstoppable in 23-lap feature race, the Dorothy Smith Memorial Cup, with an unchallenged lights-to-flag win.

The only interruption to his dominance was an early red flag for a wild opening-lap crash that took the likes of Kalle Rovanpera and Ryan Wood out of contention.

From the restart onwards it was all about Ugochukwu, who held a steady lead over Jin Nakamura across the distance to secure victory.

It was Ugochukwu second win of the day, following an impressive drive from fourth on the grid in the first of the two Sunday encounters.

That has left him with an 18-point lead after the first of four rounds.

“It’s been a great weekend overall,” he said.

“That race was really tricky, conditions were really hot so I had to look after the tyres. Jin was really quick the whole race, he did a good race. I had to keep pushing the whole way and super happy to come home with the win.”

Kanato Le made it two Japanese drivers on the podium for the finale with a distant third place behind Ugochukwu and Nakamura.

The Hitech driver did come up under some early pressure from Louis Sharp, only for the Kiwi to lose ground as the race wore on.

Sharp ended up falling back into the clutches of Freddie Slater, the pair staging an epic late-race battle over fourth place.

Slater’s pressure eventually got to Sharp, who ran wide into Turn 1 on Lap 19 and allowed the Briton to get a run and grab fourth into Turn 2.

Zack Scoular came home sixth ahead of Nolan Allaer, Ernesto Rivera and Yuanpu Cui.

Aussie James Wharton rounded out the top 10.

CTFROT continues at Taupo next weekend.

Results: Formula Regional Oceania Trophy Hampton Downs, Race 3

Results: Formula Regional Oceania Trophy Hampton Downs, Race 4