If you thought 2023 was packed full of success for Kiwi motorsport then it’s time to belt up and hold on because this year could be even bigger.

New Zealand motorsport has been punching above its weight since the likes of Bruce McLaren, Chris Amon and Denny Hulme were dominating the world stage, and just like the current crop of star drivers, the Kiwi success rate is showing no sign of slowing down in 2024.

So, as well as having a quick glance in the rear-view mirror at last year’s highlights, we’ve run the rule over where all your favourite drivers will be racing in 2024 and who is likely to shine.

It might be a golden era of Kiwi motorsport right now but the future is equally as bright with a new generation of talent coming through that is headlined by two exceptional prospects in Callum Hedge and Louis Sharp.

Formula 1

One of New Zealand’s biggest sporting stories of 2023, Liam Lawson could repeat that feat or be hardly heard of in 2024. The exciting young talent will, at this stage, be the reserve driver for Red Bull and its junior team AlphaTauri. Rumours continue to persist that Lawson will find his way onto the grid at some stage in 2024 and in F1 – and in particular with Red Bull – things can change fast. Unlike in 2023, Lawson will not race in Japan’s Super Formula – where he finished second behind Ritomo Miyata – or in any other category. Lawson was able to produce a stunning F1 debut where he finished 13th in the Dutch Grand Prix, becoming New Zealand’s 10th F1 driver, when replacing an injured Daniel Ricciardo at the 11th hour. In his four other Grand Prix, he returned outstanding results, including a ninth placing in Singapore. But as of right now, that hasn’t been enough to earn a full-time drive. However, Red Bull has indicated that outside of his countless hours of simulator work, Lawson will also do a significant amount of older car testing in 2024 to keep him race-fit, a rare move for an independent team.

Indycar Series

If the fine wine only gets better with age analogy can be used to describe any Kiwi athlete, then it would surely be six-time Indycar champion Scott Dixon. The 43-year-old is coming off a 2023 season where he finished second, behind Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Álex Palou. Dixon’s three race victories in 2023 took him to 55 career Indycar wins, behind only the great AJ Foyt who has 67. In the twilight of his incredibly successful career, Dixon is also chasing down Foyt’s record of seven championships. If he pulls it off in 2024, it would be no surprise. With composure, experience, consistency and speed, Dixon is the full package. However, if he was to finish his career with six championships, trailing behind arguably the greatest American driver ever seen in Foyt, that’s not bad for a kid who grew up in South Auckland and cut his teeth around the Mt Wellington go-kart track.

Three-time Supercars champion Scott McLaughlin only won a single Indycar race in 2023 but his consistency saw him finish third in the championship, just behind Dixon. Indycar rookie of the year in 2021, before scoring three victories in a breakout 2022 season, the 30-year-old seems destined to stand atop the Indycar championship podium for Team Penske. Still gaining experience, especially on the ovals, McLaughlin has been getting better and better in the US and the sky is his limit in 2024.

Dixon’s Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Marcus Armstrong, the 2023 Indycar Rookie of the Year, steps up to a full-time campaign in 2024. In Armstong’s rookie season, he missed the oval races, only contesting road and street circuits but steps up to a full season after an impressive 2023 that included five top-10 finishes, including a seventh in Toronto. Armstong is extremely unlikely to be a title contender in 2024, but a race win wouldn’t shock and the longer term future is extremely bright for the former Formula 2 standout.

Nascar Xfinity and Cup Series

Alongside Lawson, Shane van Gisbergen’s move to the US has been one of the major talking points of Kiwi sport, let alone motorsport. Another three-time Supercars champion, van Gisbergen will race first in Nascar’s second tier, the Xfinity Cup Series where he will complete a full season for Kaulig Racing. Van Gisbergen has signed with Trackhouse Racing, the team he won his Nascar Cup series debut with on the street circuit in Chicago back in July, but that outfit teaming up with Kaulig allows him the opportunity to get more racing. However, van Gisbergen will complete seven races in the full-fledged Nascar Cup Series for Trackhouse. All up, van Gisbergen will race 40 events in a congested apprenticeship, with his aim to be full-time in the Cup Series for Trackhouse in 2025. Learning to adapt to oval racing will be one of his biggest challenges but as we’ve seen in Supercars, circuit racing, rallying and speedway, SVG can be competitive in any category. It might be weird not to see him in the fight for a championship or even being that competitive at times in 2024, but for now, it’s all about acclimatisation as he builds towards a full on Nascar assault.

Supercars

If you’re only as good as your last race then Matthew Payne is going sensational. Just a month on from his 21st birthday, Payne won his first Supercars race in the final event of the 2023 season, the Adelaide 500. That win was a phenomenal way for the highly rated Payne, billed as the next big Supercars star out of New Zealand, to secure his first podium for Penrite Racing, who run under the Grove Racing banner. Just a week later, the Aucklander signed a new contract to commit his long-term future to Penrite Racing. Payne, a karting and open-wheel star in his early career, has a massive Supercars future ahead and there will be more race wins in 2024. Grove Racing appears to be a team on the rise and don’t be surprised if Payne is a title contender by 2025.

Joining Payne in a Penrite Mustang in 2024 is fellow Kiwi Richie Stanaway, who teamed up with van Gisbergen to win the Bathurst 1000 in 2023. Stanaway’s story has more than its fair share of challenging chapters. In 2019, he retired from professional motorsport at the age of 27 following two frustrating years at Tickford Racing and then Garry Rogers Motorsport. But it hasn’t always been that way. The German Formula 3 championship winner in 2011, Stanaway’s early career was full of success, with a career trajectory that was headed for the clouds. With a chance to rejuvenate his career at Penrite Racing, Stanaway, whose ability has never been in question, could easily be a championship winner if things finally click into place for him at Grove in the coming years.

Judging by week-to-week results, 2023 was a winless season that never really took off for Andre Heimgartner. Yet the Brad Jones Racing driver still finished seventh in the championship with four seconds and two thirds. In a competitive car, Heimgartner has the potential to jump out of a bulk group of drivers who sit mid-pack and challenge the likes of Brodie Kostecki, but it would be a brave bet to say that is going to happen in 2024.

At just 19, Wellington’s Ryan Wood will have his first full season in Supercars after being promoted out of Super2 by his Walkinshaw Andretti United team. Following his third place in that championship, the 2024 season will be about learning the Supercars ropes in his Mustang, but the young Kiwi is rated highly and will be one to follow in the coming years.

Jaxon Evans was only confirmed to be joining the 2024 Supercars grid last month. Evans takes the seat vacated by Jack Smith, who he partnered in the endurance events at Bathurst and Sandown in 2022 and 2023. It’s hard to know what to expect from Evans in his first full-time Supercars season as he jumps into the SCT Motorsport Camaro, that will continue to be run under the Brad Jones Racing banner. Smith was consistently at the back of the pack and BJR cars haven’t exactly been a force in the category in recent times, but Evans has been a serial winner in Porsche series racing all over the world and has experience in enduro racing. His progression in Supercars will be a fascinating watch.

FIM World Women’s Motocross Championship (WMX)

Defending champion Courtney Duncan returns to the WMX in 2024 where she will start as a strong favourite to secure a fifth world championship. Already the winningest rider in the history of the WMX with 22 Grand Prix (combined results over two races in a weekend) victories, Duncan’s next history-making target is the record of six WMX World Championship crowns, held by Italy’s Kiara Fontanesi. Speaking just days after her 2023 championship victory, Duncan told Stuff she was already focusing on improvements for 2024.

Indy NXT

Outside of motorsport diehards, Callum Hedge isn’t a household name, but that will all change within the next 24 months or so. Hedge, 20, took out the Porsche Carrera Cup in Australia and the Formula Regional Americas Champion in the US during a breakout and busy 2023. Those victories came on the back of him finishing second in the Formula Regional Oceania Championship (formerly Toyota Racing Series) behind Austrian Charlie Wurz. As the winner of the Formula Regional Americas Champion, Hedge could have potentially chosen to follow Lawson’s path into Japan’s Super Formula with a scholarship from engine supplier Honda Performance Development (HPD), but has instead chosen Indycars’ second tier programme with a full campaign racing for HMD Motorsports. To see him at the pointy end of that championship would not surprise.

Formula E

For the first time, there will be an all Kiwi team in Formula E with Nick Cassidy switching to Jaguar TCS Racing to link up with Mitch Evans in 2024. Cassidy finished second with Envision Racing in 2023, one place ahead of Evans in the championship race. Together as teammates, the pair look set for a successful season when Formula E gets back underway in mid-January.

Rallying

With the dust still settling on a stellar 2023, Hayden Paddon is yet to announce any plans, outside of the domestic scene, but if this year’s form is anything to go by, there should be more on the international calendar. Alongside long-time co-driver John Kennard, the Kiwi rally ace became the first non-European pairing to win the European Rally Championship title, won the Tour European Rally, and dominated the New Zealand Rally Championship. Away from the gravel, the former WRC rally winner is a pioneer, with his Paddon Rallysport team continuing to develop his flagship Hyundai Kona EV rally car that debuted in 2001.

Emma Gilmour’s time racing for McLaren in Extreme E has come to an end, but with a long history of success in the sport, including a podium finish in Extreme E, the Dunedin-based star will still be in for a busy 2024 domestically and hopefully, more overseas opportunities will present themselves.

World Endurance Championships

Former F1 driver Brendon Hartley will be back with defending champions Toyota Gazoo Racing in 2024. The Toyota team will be gunning for a sixth straight WEC title and will be heavy favourites to do so with Hartley once again teaming up with Sébastien Buemi (Switzerland) and Ryo Hirakawa (Japan). Fellow Kiwi Earl Bamber will also return in the WEC for Cadillac Racing.

Speedway

Ten times New Zealand midget champion Michael Pickens is back in the US for next week’s Chili Bowl Nationals. The biggest midget event on the planet, with more than 320 drivers from all around the world, takes place at an indoor track at the Tulsa Expo Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Also a former New Zealand sprintcar champion, Pickens, who will be racing for American team Abacus Racing, is no stranger to the event, having first attended in 2005. His best result was his 20th place in the A-main feature back in 2020.

The next generation

Fresh from being crowned the F4 British Championship at just 16, former karting sensation Louis Sharp seems destined for the big time. Exactly where Sharp lands in 2023 is yet to be determined, but it will be in Europe and with the Rodin Carlin team whom the hugely promising prospect is signed with.

There is plenty of talk around about Brock Gilchrist. A winner of the 2023 Toyota Gazoo Racing 86 Championship, Gilchrist was the inaugural winner of the Giltrap Motorsport Junior Scholarship and just last month, was announced as the Porsche Sprint Challenge Australia scholarship driver for the 2024 season. Currently racing in the GT New Zealand Championship in a McLaren 570S as part of the Giltrap scholarship, Gilchrist has already undertaken a Supercars test with van Gisbergen’s old team, Triple Eight Race Engineering.

Kiwi Sebastian Manson, 15, has been making waves in Formula Ford following a decorated karting career. In August of 2023, he was named as part of the Ferrari Driver Academy (FDA) – Asia Pacific and Oceania regional selection program for 2023 where he finished in the top six of 24 young drivers. He is a graduate of the Elite MotorSport Academy of New Zealand and currently leads the South Island Formula Ford series.

Liam Sceats and Alex Crosbie are two highly promising young drivers who will contest this month’s Formula Regional Oceania Championship (formerly TRS). Sceats finished fourth in the championship last season. Crosbie is a former National Formula Ford champion.