Rovanpera’s single-seater debut ends in first-lap carnage

Mat Coch 11 Jan 2026 8:00 PM

Kalle Rovanpera

Crashing out of the final race of the weekend following three underwhelming performances was hardly the introduction to single-seater competition Kalle Rovanpera would have hoped for.

In four races at the opening round of the Formula Regional Oceania Trophy in New Zealand, the two-time rally world champion featured no better than 12th, and failed to see the finish at all in the finale.

Kalle Rovanpera crashes out in single-seater debut event

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Hampton Downs hosted the first round of the rapid-fire four-event series, marking Rovanpera’s debut in single-seater racing ahead of a season racing Super Formula in Japan.

Over the coming month, the 25-year-old will be pitched against a host of local and international youngsters.

Formerly known as the Toyota Racing Series but rebranded to bring it in line with other similar categories globally, the Formula Regional Oceania series is used as an off-season training camp.

The cars, which are a step below Formula 3 machinery, offer competitive track time during a period when there is precious little opportunity to go racing.

And so it offers an ideal, and low-pressure, introduction for Rovanpera as he switches disciplines for 2026.

His preparations were impacted ahead of Christmas after experiencing dizziness, which was subsequently diagnosed as Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo – an inner-ear imbalance – which forced him out of Super Formula testing.

Recovered, the Finn was on track on Thursday for a pre-event practice day ahead of three practice sessions on Friday and a 15-minute qualifying session on Saturday morning.

That set the grid for the first race of the weekend, with Rovanpera 16th, though he slipped a position in the 18-lap encounter.

Starting 17th for Race 2, he then climbed to 12th, and even ran inside the top 10 for a time.

Sunday morning’s qualifying session saw promising signs as the 25-year-old sat as high as sixth for a time before ending the session ninth – ahead of Ryan Wood, who’d topped two of Friday’s three practice sessions.

In Race 3 that followed, but did not take the starting from the morning’s qualifying session, ex-McLaren junior Ugo Ugochukwu chalked up his first win of the series – Louis Sharp won Race 1, and Zack Scoular Race 2 – as Rovanpera again made progress to 13th after a lowly 18th place starting place.

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Ugochukwu won again in the weekend’s Feature race as a first corner clash saw Rovanpera eliminated on the opening lap. After starting ninth, there was early contact with Sebastian Manson which triggered the incident that saw the WRC winner out after just one corner.

The clash also involved Wood and Yevan David.

“First race of the day I started from 18th and after some good battles and time penalties for couple of drivers I finished up in P13,” Rovanpera wrote of the experience on social media.

“For the weekends feature race I qualified 9th, but unfortunately my race ended already on the first lap after being crashed out of the track. All the four drivers involved in the crash walked away unharmed and OK which of course is the most important thing.

“Still, I gained tons of valuable experience over the weekend and I’m happy to continue from here and keep improving as CTFRTO heads to Taupo for the next weeks races!”

Rovanpera’s next outing comes this weekend. The series remains on New Zealand’s north island for Round 2 at Taupo, with track action set to start on Friday.

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