Sunday Debrief: Adelaide 500

Published: 17 November 2024
A podium for Chaz to round out the ’24 season.
A podium for Chaz to round out the ’24 season.

Pictured: A podium for Chaz to round out the ’24 season.

Not even sure where to start, after leading majority of the race Chaz Mostert closed out the 2024 season with a trophy whilst Ryan Wood got caught in chaos from within the top five.

The morning started off with qualifying, having showed strong pace during the practice sessions the team were confident heading into this one, hungry to finish the year on a high.

Setting strong banker laps, Ryan and Chaz were comfortably in the 10 before the session ended early due to a red flag, securing tickets to the top 10 shootout P3 and P4.

Chaz put together an impressive lap for a front row start with Ryan lining up P7.

The final race for the year always heats up with excitement but no one could predict the chaos that ensued, unfortunately both cars were tangled in the mess throughout.

Chaz had a mega start plunging his car down the inside of turn 4 for the lead, settling into a rhythm with Feeney on his rear bumper.

Ryan charged his way up to P4 showing strong speed but got turned again by Anton de Pasquale dropping him to the back of the field, working his way up to P15 before he came in early for his first stop.

One of the first to stop, coming out in clean air, Ryan had his eyes forward pushing the car to its limit to make gains from the earlier mishap.

Chaz stayed out long in the first stint, countering Feeney who went in a few laps earlier but got caught in traffic, profiting Chaz’s strategy, coming out ahead.

The final stint was filled with chaos which started with an incident in the lane with an unsafe release with Feeney who hit the front of Car 25 coping a 15 second time penalty.

Running in P11 for Ryan in the final stint, he was battling for a top 10 finish but unfortunately collided with Anton, returning serve from earlier on in the race, being slapped with a 15 second time penalty dropping him to the rear of the field.

With 10 laps to go, Feeney got to the back of Chaz’s rear bar after battling for a few laps, put him in the fence after using his rear bar as a brake.

Despite rejoining in second, the damage to the rear bar and rear geometry meant he has a parachute for the last few laps.

Despite that though, he put in a hell of a final stint, holding off the train to miraculously finish in seconds. He had the elbows up, his 99th podium finish.

It’s been an incredible year, third place in the championship for Chaz, third in the team’s championship and the top rookie for Ryan, we wouldn’t have been able to go racing this year without our incredible partners and fans.

It’s now time for the summer break, Ryan heads back to New Zealand to catch up with some family and Chaz is getting married, a pretty exciting few weeks coming up.

See you all next year in Sydney for the first round of the 2025 championship, we will be coming out swinging ready for the new season and format. Bring it on!

Ryan Wood

Well that’s 2024 all done, a pretty eventful one today, made my way up to fourth but then got turned around, would have been a fun race to watch for the fans.

A what could have been, we had super fast cars all weekend with no luck on our side, the crew did an awesome job all weekend, a massive credit goes to them.

At the end of the day, we can hold our heads high, pretty proud of my first rookie season, made a lot of shootouts, made plenty of mistakes but learnt a lot, we didn’t get the trophy we wanted to this year but we were the top rookie in the standings.

Chaz Mostert

Well, that’s all she wrote, we got second in the last race, we gave it our all but it wasn’t meant to be.

I thought we were done after the hit with Feeney, the car was pretty sketchy after that but I built my confidence in the car and made my car as wide as a bus to hold off for a trophy for the team.

My favourite part of this season has to be the supporters of Walkinshaw Andretti United, we honestly can’t do this without you, you fuel us to go racing!

See you next year for a bigger and better 2025!