Grove one-two in sole Sydney 500 practice, Wood last

The Penrite-backed pair were evenly matched to the tenth, with just 0.0252s splitting them after 45 minutes at Sydney Motorsport Park.

Jayden Ojeda was third and the best of the Chevrolet fleet for PremiAir Racing, 0.1138s off the pace. Fellow Camaro drivers Anton De Pasquale (Team 18) and Zach Bates (Matt Stone Racing) completed the top five.

Chaz Mostert led the Toyota Supra quartet in ninth, though his Walkinshaw TWG Racing teammate Ryan Wood languished in last.

The team said there were no issues with the #2 car, despite being 1.4 seconds off the pace.

“They feel great on track. For myself, we’re missing a little bit,” Wood explained.

“I’m driving too hard and trying to make up for my little bit of imbalance. Nonetheless, I’m enjoying driving something new.

“Every time, as a race car driver, you’re sort of searching. When you’ve got a new product underneath you, you’re always learning. That’s what this weekend is all about: learning.

“I probably haven’t done as much driving in the Supra as I would have liked being so busy over summer. I’ve got to pull my socks up and do a better job in qualifying and see where we land.”

Wood completed just 30 laps across four hours of testing on Thursday evening – the least of any driver.

Asked why that was the case, Wood said the team is still developing the Supra package.

“It’s been a bit of development on our end and learning. Big wholesale changes are being what we’ve been trying to find,” said Wood.

“That’s just when you’re exploring, you’re trying to look for that golden ticket at the bottom of the hat to see if you can find it.

“Hopefully we can creep closer to the faster guys. For myself, I’ve got to lean on car #1 now quite a bit to see what I’ve got to do.”

Mostert, meanwhile, said there was work to do on his end to be back towards the front.

The 2025 champion wound up half a second off the leading Allen Mustang.

“Yeah look, a little bit to work on in our camp, for sure,” said Mostert.

“We changed a lot of things throughout that practice session and hopefully we can throw the dart at the next one and make a few more spots. Not a bad start.

“The goal for us as a race car is just working on balance and keep trying to learn the new package.

“Like I said, we threw a lot of stuff then – some pros, some cons – now we’ve got to try and eliminate the cons and put it all together.

“I’m pretty confident for the next one. We’ll definitely have a better package after some stuff we learned then. We just need to piece it all together.”

Macauley Jones was the best of the Brad Jones Racing Toyota Supra trio in 13th, while Andre Heimgartner and Cameron Hill ended up 16th and 22nd.

The session ran without incident. Brodie Kostecki and David Reynolds each pushed the limits out of Turn 3 and sent dust skyward after running wide.

The session ended with a Safety Car procedure test and practice starts.

Results: Repco Supercars Championship Dunlop Sydney 500, Practice 1