Sam Le Noel

As part of the scholarship package Sam was provided with a day at Mike Eady's Tracktime, with an additional bonus of a tuition session with Hunter Rob. Sam improved by 6 seconds from the start of the day to the end of it, making great strides amidst the changing conditions.

The third time's the charm! As his greatest achievement to date, Sam took away the win for the 2026 BMW E46 Scholarship day, providing him with an epic drive for the upcoming 6 round season.

Sam was invited to race in the #27 car with Pilcher Racing for his first ever endurance race - after a powerful stint (despite radio troubles) and a good drive from his teammates they took away the victory at the end of the day!

Round five of the NZ Motul Honda Cup brought Sam's first season of racing to an end, and with it the title of Rookie Champion and 3rd Overall for the Production class.

Sam was one of only eight drivers selected to compete in the 2026 CareVets scholarship day - the competition was tight and the trials were difficult, and although Sam didn't come away with the scholarship his results were very promising.

Round 4 at Hampton Downs started off well for Sam, however a spark plug was jettisoned from the engine in race 2 which had everyone scrambling to fix it! Despite the nature of the challenge, everyone did their best to provide assistance but the car was not able to make it back out on track for the final race of the weekend.

Sam had the chance to train professionally with Kaleb Ngatoa, where he set a laptime 2.5 tenths of a second off the internationally renowned driver. The academy also gave Sam a unique insight to his data, which he previously had not been able to explore.

Sam showed relentless pace over the weekend, scoring P2 in race two and P1 in race three. The racing was good and Sam was able to spend time honing his abilities and tweaking the setup of the car to find a quicker lap.

After a crash during Friday practice, Sam and the team managed to get the car back on track for the weekend's racing. Despite the car blowing a front engine mount off the line during race two Sam persevered, a new engine mount was fitted and Sam converted race three into his second race win!

Sam's first time driving the Production Class Honda Accord was qualifying for his first ever race weekend; not just for cars, but for any racing at all! Despite being up against the odds, Sam took many learning lessons away from this weekend and managed to take away his very first race win at the end of the day - cementing himself as the rookie to beat this season.

Sam was selected as one of the lucky few to compete for the BMW e46 Spec Series Scholarship - he quickly caught the eyes of those adjudicating, surprising the likes of Mike Eady (who was under the impression he had previous racing experience!) and was commended for his driving ability. Rest assurred he'll be back next year to take the title!