RYAN Wood’s Repco Supercars Championship debut may have lasted only a matter of seconds, but teammate Chaz Mostert has seen enough to earmark the Kiwi as the category’s next star.
The 20-year-old Kiwi has been thrust into the #2 Walkinshaw Andretti United entry this year after a single Dunlop Super2 Series campaign in which he proved fast but inconsistent.
Wood has wasted little time making an impression on the Supercars field, ending Friday practice one place behind Mostert in 11th before clocking the eighth fastest time in Saturday qualifying.
He was, however, denied a fairytale Shootout berth after his best time was deleted for failing to observe yellow flags.
The 2024 season is underway with a DRAMATIC start 😱#RepcoSC #Supercars pic.twitter.com/TyQLPHhIDj
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Demoted to 14th on the grid, his race was over in a matter of moments as a four-wide squeeze into Turn 1 left the Mobil 1 Truck Assist Mustang unable to continue.
“It’s a pretty big step up for him. He said he was just the meat in the sandwich into Turn 1,” said Mostert after chalking up a third-place finish in the 250km season-opener.
“He showed amazing speed through qualifying, what he’s done through practice, he’s keeping me really honest.
“I’ve tried to get into his head, look, what you’re doing in your first race is pretty impressive.
“He’s come from one year of Development Series, straight into Gen3 cars this year and they haven’t been the easiest transition cars for us all last year.
“But what he’s showing is something pretty special and I think he’s going to pretty much light this championship up when he has a little bit of luck go his way.”
Wood vowed to come back stronger from the tough initiation.
“Not the start to the season we wanted after not even finishing a lap in the race,” he said.
“(I’m) pretty gutted to be honest, this just makes me hungrier to get back behind the wheel tomorrow and show what we can do.”
The Supercars Championship field will again tackle a qualifying session, Top 10 Shootout and 250km race at Mount Panorama today.
