{"id":699576,"date":"2026-05-28T07:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T07:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/699576\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T07:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T07:47:08","slug":"supercars-referee-craig-baird-apologises-for-ryan-wood-grub-comment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/699576\/","title":{"rendered":"Supercars referee Craig Baird apologises for Ryan Wood ‘grub’ comment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Supercars referee has offered an apology to a driver after describing him as “a bit of a grub” because of his actions at the conclusion of last year’s championship.<\/p>\n

Craig Baird, the Supercars driving standards advisor (DSA) who is in charge of refereeing on-track incidents, has been reprimanded by Motorsport Australia for comments he made in the media about Walkinshaw TWG Racing’s Ryan Wood, who had a major influence in deciding last year’s drivers’ championship.<\/p>\n

Wood’s teammate Chaz Mostert and Triple Eight Race Engineering’s Broc Feeney went into the Adelaide 500 grand final as the two genuine championship contenders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Feeney had won 14 races and achieved a record 19 pole positions that year but the maiden year of the finals series allowed Mostert, who had just one win before the finals, to have a chance of claiming the title.<\/p>\n

Chaz Mostert wins maiden Supercars title<\/a><\/p>\n

Chaz Mostert breaks through for a maiden Supercars championship after rival Broc Feeney spins out on the opening lap at the Adelaide grand final.<\/p>\n

Wood tagged the back of Feeney on the opening lap of the finale and spun him around, all but ending his title challenge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Feeney finished a distant 20th, Wood was handed a 15-second penalty, and Mostert claimed the Supercars crown.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In an interview with Code Sports<\/a> that was published last week, Baird said he had predicted Wood would make an audacious overtake attempt on Feeney to help his teammate win the Supercars crown.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I think everyone knew, including Woody, that he had been a bit of a grub,” Baird told Code Sports.<\/p>\n

“I actually said to the stewards prior to the race, if I was Woody, I am going to throw it up the inside of Broc Feeney no matter what happens, it will be going up the inside at [turn] four or six and it will be on lap one.<\/p>\n

“I said it to Leigh Diffey, who was in my office prior to that race. I said it to Michael Masi, I was very vocal about it. I said, ‘I already know the outcome, I know what is happening’.<\/p>\n

“You know when you’ve been a grub, I know when you’ve been a grub \u2026 he knew he had been a grub. He will never admit it, but he was happy, he was happy with his penalty.<\/p>\n

“They can say whatever they want because the only consequence has made no difference to Woody’s championship, why wouldn’t they do it? And it will happen again.”<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

Motorsport Australia today released a statement formally apologising to Wood and Walkinshaw TWG Racing.<\/p>\n

The governing body also said Baird would be reprimanded for breaching the standards of Motorsport Australia.<\/p>\n

Baird, who has been the Supercars DSA for several years, also offered a formal apology to Wood and his team.<\/p>\n

“I would like to formally apologise and retract my comments regarding Ryan Wood and the Walkinshaw TWG Racing Team,” Baird said.<\/p>\n

“It’s clear that these comments were unacceptable and outside the boundaries of my role.<\/p>\n

“I have met with Motorsport Australia to ensure I have a clear understanding moving forward regarding public commentary of this nature and understand that this is not acceptable from the Driving Standards Advisor.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Supercars referee has offered an apology to a driver after describing him as “a bit of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[5844,64,63,170010,806,805,246230,803,804,40248,588,85,40367],"class_list":["post-699576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-abc-sport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-craig-baird","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport-australia","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-ryan-wood","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-supercars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}