Ryan Wood has kept his clean sweep of podiums on home soil rolling, with third in the first race of the weekend in Christchurch, the replacement race from Taupo last weekend.

Chaz Mostert brought the Mobil 1 Optus Racing GR Supra home in eighth, a solid platform to build from for the rest of the weekend.

The sprint race began in the setting South Island sun, with chaos on the first lap. Confusion over whether a safety car had been called or not backed the field up, but luckily everyone survived and continued on. When the field settled, Woody had moved to second, and Chaz was running solidly inside the 10.

We entered the unknown today on strategy and degradation. We opted to change four tyres on both cars, half way through the race, with a handful doing rears only and taking track position.

With Kai Allen one of those cars who took rears only, he jumped from third to first with 10 to go, setting up a three-way fight for the lead until the flag between Allen, Wood and Brodie Kostecki.

As hard as he tried, Wood had to settle for third despite running nose to tail with the front two, making it three podiums in a row in NZ, and a solid start to the weekend on the Mobil 1 Truck Assist Racing side of the garage.

For Chaz, he battled hard in the pack, just lacking that little bit of speed to go with the leaders. We will tune Car 1 up overnight and put him back in the fight.

Saturday sees two more 37-lap sprint races, one on the soft tyre, one on the super-soft.

Ryan Wood

“Another awesome result for us in the Mobil 1 Truck Assist Racing GR Supra today, we have got a good collections of trophies so far over here, and we are all keen to keep that rolling for the rest of the weekend.

“Feels a little bit like a case of what could have been, if we could have snuck onto P1 in quali today, or jumped the guys at the stop and held track position I definitely think we could have stayed there, but still, third is a great start.

“We’ve got a heap to go through tonight being day one around here, lots to improve, and another huge day tomorrow. Awesome to see so many kiwis out here for a Friday, it’s going to be a huge weekend.”

Chaz Mostert

“Huge day here, one of the biggest of the year in terms of trying to get as much information in as possible.

“It’s a really cool track, extremely technical, so there’s a lot to look through tonight, we’ve got some work to do tonight that’s for sure to get Car 1 further up tomorrow, and I’ve got some homework to do tonight as well, but I’m confident we can do it. Woody is doing a great job so far this weekend, so congrats to the team on today.”