Ryan Wood was back on track over the weekend at the Sydney 500 for the opening round of the 2025 Championship with Walkinshaw Andretti United.
On Friday’s opening day, the Mobil 1 Truck Assist Racing No. 2 had strong pace in qualifying in Part 1 but Wood didn’t maximise his green laps in Part 2 and finished P7.
With 100kms on the clock for Race 1, it would be a fast sprint to the end and Woody had an early entertaining battling with reigning Champion Will Brown in the opening laps and held his own, coming out in front.
Wood came out of the pits in a battling pack, but struggling for balance late in the race he crossed the line P11.
On Saturday’s Top Ten Shootout, Wood was up three tenths on the field until the right rear dropped into the dirt on the final corner costing two tenths, slotting him P7 on the grid.
As the lights went out, Car 2 couldn’t get off the line due to a clutch issue, dropping Wood to the rear of the field, luckily he was safe with all the cars behind him weaving past him, narrowly avoiding him.
The chaos continued on lap 8 laps after a car caught fire, calling the safety car onto the track, sending all cars into pit lane for a double stack, throwing strategy for the first stop out the window.
Things went from bad to worse for Wood, being handed a pit lane penalty after an unsafe release during his pitstop.
It was a long race after that for Ryan, having top five pace the remainder of the race but not having anything to show for it being half a lap behind, hoping for a second safety car that never came.
Unfortunately on Sunday Wood missed out securing a spot in the shootout by the skin of his teeth, 0.06 seconds, so would start the 200km Race 3 in P12.
It was a déjà vu moment for him however in the opening laps being run wide by Anton De Pasquale dropping him down to P17, deep in a battling pack.
Wood had his elbows out and quickly made his way forward through the pack, one of the fastest cars out there before coming in for the undercut strategy for his second stop, taking a gamble on the rain not getting too heavy before the race ended.
A strong recovery drive from Wood who crossed the line P14 after his tangle earlier in the race.
“A bit of an up and down weekend for us in quali with two P7’s and a P12 today, not the greatest of weekends in the races either. Plenty of homework to do, not sure what I’m doing with my starts so we will definitely look through the data to get that right for the next one. At the end of the day you’ve got to take some positives out of it, we have ended up well off compared to the first-round last year! A better starting platform and bring on the AGP.”
Round 2 of the Supercars Championship will be held on March 13-16 at the Australian Grand Prix.
