Wood leads Payne for all-Kiwi front row at Christchurch

Wood clocked the fastest time in part one of qualifying with one run, giving him a green set of tyres for part two.

He set the pace at the start of part two on a 1:21.2129s that he then improved to a 1:21.0946s in the #2 Toyota Supra.

Grove Racing’s Matt Payne was second, 0.2771s adrift, for an all-Kiwi front row.

Race 2 pole position winner Brodie Kostecki was third for Dick Johnson Racing and will line up alongside Race 1 winner Kai Allen of Grove Racing.

Anton De Pasquale made a marked session-on-session improvement to qualify fifth as the best Chevrolet Camaro driver for Team 18.

Broc Feeney (Triple Eight Race Engineering), James Golding (Blanchard Racing Team), Aaron Cameron (Blanchard Racing Team), Jack Le Brocq (Matt Stone Racing), and Jayden Ojeda (PremiAir Racing) completed the top 10.

“I felt like I made a meal of the soft tyre quali and went back to the container, refocused and we had a plan to do that,” said Wood of the tyre strategy.

“Honestly, it was touch-and-go if we would do it or not, and we did. I’m happy.

“The car seemed really, really strong on the super soft. Another pole position, which is really cool.”

With new parc ferme rules meaning teams cannot tweak car set-up between qualifying and the race, the team elected to put the race set-up in for Wood’s final run. Despite that, he was able to go even faster.

“That was race car set-up, so a lot of confidence and the car stuck well,” Wood said.

“I’m really, really happy. Some fast boys and we’ve got to do the best we can and we’ve got to salvage a good day today starting from sixth in the first one is going to be tough. We’ll do our best.”

It was a case of deja vu for Tickford Racing’s Cameron Waters and Walkinshaw TWG Racing driver Chaz Mostert.

After qualifying 11th in the preceding qualifying session, Waters was only 12th and Mostert not far behind in 15th.

However, the biggest shock was Will Brown down in 16th who said he made a mistake.

“I locked up at Turn 2 but didn’t feel like I really over-pushed it, but obvious made a mistake there,” said Brown.

“Once you do that on the super soft [compound tyre] you’re not getting a second lap. We pushed for one but didn’t get it.

“Ended up 16th, it’s tough. We felt like we lost a bit of performance then and everyone did the same time. I felt pretty good on the soft, just working on the super soft.

“It’s tough when you qualify bad around here because it’s not very easy to pass.

“It’s a bit of a goat’s trail at the end of the day, so we’ll have to see what we can do in the race to try and get up there a little bit more.”

Race 2 of the ITM Christchurch Super440 gets underway at 10:45am AEST.

Results: Repco Supercars Championship ITM Christchurch Super440, Qualifying Race 3