'Let's win Chaz a championship': Wood's fighting words amid Finals despair

Walkinshaw Andretti United owner Ryan Walkinshaw was full of praise for his young charge Ryan Wood after the Kiwi missed out on securing a Semi Final berth.

It was another luckless weekend for the 21-year-old, who dominated the early running on Saturday at the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500, claiming his second pole of the season and controlling the race from the front.

However, any potential 'win and you're in' scenario was thrown out the window when a fuel leak sprang from the rear of his #2 Mobil 1 Truck Assist Mustang. In a flash, he went from being in the box seat, to his Finals hopes being on life support.

Things were only further complicated on a difficult Sunday where he missed the Top Ten Shootout, and suffered a cool suit failure in the opening 10 laps of the 85-lapper.

Ultimately, a ninth place finish wasn't enough for Wood, who fell short of claiming a spot in the Semi Final by 69 points.

When asked in the post-race press conference how the Kiwi would take being knocked out largely through circumstances outside of his control, Walkinshaw revealed that Wood immediately turned his mind to Chaz.

"Woody will handle himself, and even though his cool suit wasn't working for the majority of the race, and he was cooked at the end, he got over the finish line and he was two spots off actually going to the Semi Finals," Walkinshaw said.

"The first thing he said on the radio was, "Hell yeah, let's go and do anything we can to get Chaz to win this championship.'"

His failure on Saturday marked the second time in as many races that a mechanical failure had dropped Wood out of contention for a major win, following his Bathurst heartache just two weeks prior.

Whilst there have also been incidents throughout the season where a portion of the blame could be attributed to Wood, Walkinshaw went as far to say that it's an "injustice" that he won't feature in championship calculations.

"It's obviously hugely frustrating because we've seen so much pace out of the guy, and he's had an unbelievable amount of bad luck. Some things within control, others were out of it," Walkinshaw said.

"For him to not have managed to get some of the wins that he should've had this year, and for him to be not going forward in The Finals feels like a little bit of an injustice.

"But, that's also the point of The Finals, you're supposed to have some glory stories and some heartbreak. Unfortunately we've had heartbreak on one side of the garage, and a pretty glorious story on the other side.

"He's going to do everything he can to try and win some trophies in the back end of the season, and focus in on next year where I think we've all got a lot of belief that he can definitely give it a good crack next year.

"He's shown himself that he's definitely a worthy competitor in this category, and he's got a bright future."

Teammate Chaz Mostert, who claimed a clean sweep on the Gold Coast to stamp his authority on the title race, admitted that with Wood now out of the title race, he feels extra pressure to deliver WAU's first Supercars Championship win since 2002.

He agreed with Walkinshaw's sentiment on Wood, even going so far to say that based on speed and form alone, Wood deserved to make it to the bp Adelaide Grand Final.

"On the other side, obviously Woody didn't get through in The Finals, I still take that pretty heavy to heart," Mostert added.

"He's been a real form guy all year, he's been so fast, and to be honest he deserves to be all the way to Adelaide on his talent. Now I feel like I've even got more that I've got to try and do now to carry that as well.

"It's a shame on one side of the garage, awesome on one, but it's a team sport and today the team won it for me."