FOR some, being a rookie with a superstar teammate could be a recipe for disaster.
But contrary to his pointscore, Ryan Wood passed his Supercars debut with flying colours.
The Kiwi recorded a pair of DNFs in Round 1 at Bathurst courtesy of startline/first-corner incidents, but showed he has the qualifying pace to make his mark.
Wood was eighth in the opening qualifying session of the season before being penalised for disobeying yellow flags; he also took 11th on the grid for the Sunday race.
It was an impressive turn of pace for a youngster who’d never before even competed as a main game co-driver.
Wood took some comfort out of how he matched up against Walkinshaw Andretti United teammate Chaz Mostert.
“Obviously it’s nice, but I don’t expect that to happen every weekend,” Wood told V8 Sleuth of his one-lap pace.
“I think there’s guys up and down the lane that probably have plenty of stories to tell of how they should have been in the 10 as well.
“I think on our side of the garage comparing myself to Chaz, yeah there’s a lot to work on, but it’s not as much as I thought.
“If I could have walked out of the weekend saying I would have qualified eighth and 11th, I would have taken that, so pretty happy with that side of it.
“But if you were to tell me I would walk away with two DNFs, then I would be pretty gutted.
“So in that sense, we have got some stuff to work on and I need to get my starts right – that probably put me in a couple of positions I shouldn’t have been in.”
Wood noted he has to be smart in not pushing too hard in benchmarking himself against the masterful Mostert.
He added that the zero next to his name in the points standings does hurt in more ways than one.
“It hurts, but it hurts for the boys as well because Chaz had a great weekend and we should be probably second or third in the teams’ championship where we’re ninth and it’s out of our control,” said Wood.
“At the end of the day, if I shunted the thing on my own then it would be different, but both times it was out of our control.
“So that’s what I’m more gutted on but hey look, fingers crossed we can bounce back at AGP and hopefully have some good results.”
Albert Park, which hosts Round 2 on March 21-24 in support of the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix, is a circuit Wood has yet to race on.
Helping his preparations will be a rookie test tomorrow at The Bend Motorsport Park, where the Blanchard Racing Team’s Aaron Love will also be in action.
