'I would have laughed at you’: Wood stunned by huge turnaround
Ryan Wood stunned by huge turnaround after starting weekend in last
Walkinshaw TWG driver left Sydney sixth in the drivers' championship
It's Wood's best start to a season, banishing memories of double DNF in 2024
On Friday afternoon, Ryan Wood was 24th of 24. Last. Stone motherless last.
By weekend’s end, the #2 Mobil 1 Truck Assist Toyota driver was sixth in points, bettering his Round 1 efforts from 2024 and 2025.
It was a weekend of feast and famine for Walkinshaw TWG Racing, with reigning champion Chaz Mostert disqualified from Race 2, and the team penalised for another infringement on Saturday.
On a weekend arch rival Broc Feeney won two races, Wood kept a clean sheet to deliver finishes of 21st, seventh and fifth to leave Sydney sixth overall.
While 21st may look like a bad result, it came in a half points race. In the 200km races, only Feeney, Matt Payne and Cam Waters — the top three overall — scored more points than Wood.
Rain and incidents did help, something team boss Ryan Walkinshaw didn’t hide behind. But Wood was stunned to deliver a result from 18th, alongside Mostert’s 16th to fourth run.
“A great result in the end for our team, it’s been a really cool weekend taking the new Toyota GR Supra out on track,” Wood said.
“Finishing up P5 from P18 today, a really cool for both me and Chazzie to finish up the weekend in the top five from really deep in the field in a very chaotic race.
“I’ll be honest, it’s been a pretty up and down weekend, if you told me we would be walking away from the weekend P6 in the championship, I would have laughed at you.”
After getting caught in traffic early, Mostert came in early for four tyres, while Wood was one of the last to stop.
As rain circled around Sydney Motorsport Park, the two WTWGR Supras moved up to sixth and eighth, which became fourth and fifth when Aaron Cameron was turned around by Brodie Kostecki.
Mostert was happy to get to the end of the weekend, and hailed the support for his team after a watershed weekend.
"Bit of a mixed bag of results for Car 1 this weekend, but the highlight was definitely that last race to go fourth and fifth with Woody, he sure was putting me through the paces towards the end of that race,” Mostert said.
“I wanted to say a massive thank you to all of our supporters this weekend for coming across to the Toyota GR Supras with us, it’s really special to see how many of you are here this weekend.
"Hold tight, we will have some good results coming and we appreciate you coming along on the journey with us.”
The 2026 season resumes in Melbourne on March 5-8.
