The Kiwi had been second to teammate Chaz Mostert in the earlier Race 1 qualifying before breaking through in emphatic style in the session that featured the super soft tyre.

Key to Wood’s Q2 heroics was a decision to only do one run in Q1, saving a fresh set of tyres for the second segment.

Wood subsequently did enough when it mattered, nailing a 53.8966s best in the dying stages of Q2 to snatch pole by 0.2578s from Tickford Racing’s Cameron Waters.

“It was one of the worst laps I’ve done this weekend. I couldn’t get out of the bowl, I was pretty worried,” he said.

“I knew we’d played it quite smart in that first session and we were a little bit nervous but confident.

“And managed to execute. So I’m pretty stoked. We’ll try and start the race well and build from there. We’ve got two good starting positions today.”

Triple Eight’s Broc Feeney and Grove Racing’s Matt Payne will share the second row.

Thomas Randle rebounded from a tough Race 1 qualifying for fifth ahead of Brodie Kostecki, Kai Allen, Will Brown, Bryce Fullwood and Nick Percat.

Mostert was the shock omission from Q2, having run off at Turn 1 on his first lap and managed just 11th with his follow-up effort.

“I made a small mistake into [Turn] 1,” Mostert explained.

“Kind of struggled on that tyre a little bit more, the only data we had to go off was Woody in practice and the ‘soft car’ is in the window and just feel like I’m a little bit out on the super soft compared to what we’ve had this year.

“It’s more on my mistake, probably hard to do a lap two with the car I had and the tyre temperature, but that’s the way it goes.”

The only other driver to make the top 10 for Race 1 but miss out for Race 2 was PremiAir Racing’s James Golding, who slumped to 17th.

Teammate Richie Stanaway’s tough morning continued, the Kiwi 24th in both sessions, ahead only of the Lochie Dalton-driven Tickford Racing wildcard.

Race 14 is scheduled for 2:55pm AEST before Race 15 at 6:10pm AEST.

Results: Bosch Power Tools Perth Super440 Qualifying Race 2