Ryan Wood has refuted suggestions he deliberately took out Broc Feeney in the Supercars grand final to get Walkinshaw teammate Chaz Mostert the championship. But Supercars legend Colin Bond has called on Motorsport Australia to take action against the Ford driver.
Mostert won the first championship of his 12-year career on Sunday, surging past long-time leader Feeney with a stunning three-round burst in the new finals system. Mostert took advantage of the new format that rewarded the best driver in the quarter-final, semi-final and grand final.
Ryan Wood has denied deliberately taking out Broc Feeney (L) to help Chaz Mostert (R) in the Supercars grand final. Image: Channel 7/Getty
Feeney had led the championship since round four thanks to a whopping 14 race wins on the season, but Mostert won three of his four races when it mattered most. Feeney was still a good chance to win the championship on the final day of the season and started in the front row in the last race in Adelaide.
But he was ruined by engine troubles, which came after a controversial incident with Wood on the opening lap. Wood and Mostert are teammates at Walkinshaw Andretti United, and many felt Wood had deliberately turned Feeney around on the opening lap to give Mostert a better chance of winning the championship.
Wood got up the inside of Feeney as he tried to overtake, but spun Feeney around when the Triple Eight driver turned in to navigate a corner. Wood was hit with a 15-second penalty after stewards found he was most at fault. Feeney showed some great speed as he tried to recover, but was eventually brought undone by engine issues for the second day in a row.
Colin Bond calls for $444,000 fine
Speaking on Monday, Supercars Hall of Famer Bond claimed Wood acted deliberately to take Feeney out. “I think the whole thing was deliberate,” Bond told Speedcafe. “I don’t care what you say. It was a team, they knew what they were doing, they knocked him out of the race before even one lap had gone by.”
Bond pointed to a warning issued by Motorsport Australia before the grand final that teams would be punished for ‘manipulating’ races. “They were talking beforehand that if you knock someone out that was in the championship, they’d be fined 250,000 euros (AU$444,000). I only hope they give that to Wood.”
Broc Feeney was turned around by Ryan Wood on the opening lap. Image: Supercars
Ryan Wood insists he was simply trying to win
But Wood isn’t having any of that, saying he was simply trying to win the race. “Obviously, apologies to Broc, because I know he’s worked so hard this year and his whole career. I hate to see that happened and be in the middle of something,” the WAU driver said.
“I saw a gap and went for it and got crowded down, and [contact] obviously happened. I think 50 per cent of people are going to agree and 50 per cent are not.
“I’m obviously upset because it ruined my race. Obviously gutted that I got involved in something like that, but I just thought as soon as I saw the gap open, I was like, ‘this is my opportunity’ because yesterday he ran away from me when he got in front of me. I was here to win the race today and I feel like I gave myself the best opportunity to go that going for the gap on lap 1.”
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Wood questioned why Feeney tried to defend so hard considering Wood wasn’t in contention. Feeney made similar comments after Sunday’s race that he could have let Wood pass and still won the championship because Wood wasn’t involved in the four-driver grand final.
The danger for Feeney would have been letting Wood pass and then being blocked by the Ford driver. Although at the time of Sunday’s incident they were both in front of Mostert.
Chaz Mostert and Ryan Wood are Walkinshaw teammates. (Photo by Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images)
Motorsport Australia had sent warning to teams
Last month, Motorsport Australia reportedly sent a memo to all teams warning that “extreme misconduct” would draw fines up to $444,000, disqualification and possible race bans. Penrite Racing boss David Cauchi said: “We don’t want to see reckless driving, and cars being taken out and all that sort of jazz, that’s not good for the sport. We want to see what Supercars is about, it’s hard, close, fair racing.”
Feeney’s teammate Will Brown had said: “You can’t take someone out deliberately. If anything is looked at as being deliberate, like NASCAR seemed to get away with it, [but] not over here. We’ve definitely loosened the rules up a bit there, but you can’t just punt someone off to try and get through, which kind of happens in NASCAR.”