Advantage Giddy on penultimate day of Mazda Series finale

It is advantage to Ajay Giddy with just one more day of racing remaining in the 2025/2026 Nexen Tyre Mazda Racing Super Series at Taupō International Motorsport Park tomorrow (Sunday).

Fourteen-year-old Giddy, of Silverdale, and Stu Lawton of Paraparaumu arrived at the final round this weekend tied on points with Auckland driver Callum Pratt just four points behind.

Qualifying delivered the dream scenario as Giddy qualified fastest with Lawton alongside for today’s first race over ten laps of the Taupō circuit. The speedy James Black of Dunedin qualified third to be the cat amongst the pigeons on the grid with Pratt fourth and an epic showdown in prospect.

However, there was drama prior to the race as due to a technical issue Pratt was forced to start from the rear of the grid.

That left Giddy and Lawton in a head-to-head battle and they did not disappoint. Giddy led all the way with Lawton generally less than a second behind until lap 7 when he dropped to fifth after a brief off-track excursion.

Giddy continued to lead to the chequered flag to take the win from Black with Sam Dashfield of Auckland third. Lawton, who set the fastest lap of the race, recovered to finish fourth with Simon Baker of Kapiti fifth and Alex Canty of Auckland sixth.

Tomas Climo of Hamilton finished seventh with Pratt behind him in eighth, ahead of Nigel Edger of Hamiton and Phil Clemas of Auckland. Pratt made rapid progress early in the race reaching eighth position by lap four but climbed no higher. Jesse Gould of Raumati Beach who would have started from sixth on the grid did not take the start after a problem after the warm up lap,

Giddy, a series rookie, will take a small points lead into the season’s final day of racing which sees a 12-lap race tomorrow morning with the top ten finishers from today’s race in reverse order on the starting grid. That means Lawton will start seventh and Giddy tenth with Pratt third. The final race over ten laps, based on round points to that time, will bring down the curtain on the season tomorrow afternoon.

The Nexen Tyre Mazda Racing Super Series is always a thrilling watch and with so much on the line tomorrow action is guaranteed.