Mostert, WAU explain frustration over costly hiccups

Recent rounds have helped Walkinshaw Andretti United, yet there remains a sense of continued missed opportunities for the Ford squad.

Chaz Mostert and Ryan Wood ended the Repco Sprint Cup portion of the season ranked fifth and ninth, with the young Kiwi claiming a brace of podiums in Ipswich.

However, like previous rounds, there was a feeling of what could have been, with Mostert missing the start in the first race, and both drivers penalised in the finale.

While Broc Feeney had a clear pace advantage, Wood reiterated throughout the weekend he was frustrated by the margin to the #88.

For WAU CEO Bruce Stewart, the pace of his drivers hasn't been rewarded with wins, but the team is at least delivering on its goal on embedding both drivers in the top 10.

“There were a lot of positives from the weekend and both our cars had good pace,” Stewart said.

"Both Chaz Mostert and Ryan Wood made great comeback runs on Sunday, with Chazzie coming through the field twice after a full-course yellow caution.

“There is still frustration because our great pace over a range of events is not reflected in our positions, but the focus is getting both cars deep into the top 10 and on the podium for the Bathurst 1000.

"Then we can punch with both fists at the grand final in Adelaide."

Mostert's qualifying average in Ipswich was 7.3, which was bettered only by Sydney (7.0) and Taupō (5.7). However, where he was third for the round in Sydney and second in Taupō, he was only ninth in Ipswich.

After qualifying fourth for the Ipswich opener, Mostert was forced into the garage with a severed brake line, and was ruled out of contention. The following day, he was classified fourth but demoted to sixth over a penalty, having collided with Anton De Pasquale.

"The bright spot was qualifying, with some good starting positions for the weekend, even if a mistake in Q2 for Saturday’s second race was not ideal on my part," Mostert wrote on his website.

"The day got worse from there. I don’t know what black cat I ran over for a brake problem to happen on the start line, though I’m glad it happened there rather than during racing, maybe I only ran over the black cat’s tail. But it was out to get me.

"We had pretty good pace in the second race, though. We decided to go for four tyres at the stop, and we moved up two positions on where we started.

"The race was going okay from there. I moved forward a couple of places, and I was up to seventh or sixth at some stage. Then there was all this weird strategy stuff... at the end I had what was probably one of the roughest arm-wrestle races I’ve ever had with anyone.

"I raced with Andre [Heimgartner] quite hard and Anton too and got myself a five-second penalty. But we were fast enough at the end to recover back to sixth in the classification, so overall I’m reasonably happy."