Walkinshaw Andretti United's Ryan Wood has blitzed the field to set the fastest time in practice on his Sydney Motorsport Park Supercars debut.
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The 20-year-old New Zealander pipped Matt Stone Racing's Nick Percat by 0.042 seconds to set a benchmark lap time of one minute 30.584 seconds as the sun set over western Sydney on Friday.
Less than a 10th of a second separated Wood from teammate Chaz Mostert in third; a promising sign for second-placed WAU ahead of Saturday's opening race.
Wood had never before topped a Supercars session. A strong showing under the lights over the weekend would rocket him up the championship standings from a lowly 17th place.
"Feeling pretty confident going into tomorrow. It's a nice way to end tonight," Wood said.
"We've been hanging around for a while to drive the race cars, and it's nice to come out pretty strong.
"My eyes took probably 20 minutes to adjust fully, then did my race run and started to really figure out what it took, the concentration is pretty high."
Championship leader Will Brown bounced back from a lacklustre weekend in Townsville with the fourth-fastest time, while Triple Eight teammate Broc Feeney rounded out the top 10.
After a lightning drive to win race 14 at Reid Park from 10th on the grid, Matt Payne completed one lap before coming back into the pits with worrying vibration in his Ford Mustang.
Initial fears the issue was engine related were allayed when it turned out to be a broken tail shaft and the Grove Racing man was sent back out after some on-the-run repairs to notch the 15th fastest time.
Reigning series champion Brodie Kostecki continued to battle the steering rack issue that plagued his Erebus Camaro in Townsville, coming in 12th fastest at 0.661 seconds off the pace.
Tasmanian wildcard Lochie Dalton (Tickford), who is sitting in sixth place in Super2, got the 23rd-fastest lap out of 25 drivers.
Qualifying for race 15 of the season starts at 2.50pm local time on Saturday before a top-10 shootout to determine the final grid spots.
The first of two 200km races then begins under lights at 7.35pm.
The circuit's long, high-speed corners are brutal on the cars' soft tyres.
A massive 63 per cent of the lap is spent turning, meaning getting pit stop strategy right will be key to success in the weekend's races.
Australian Associated Press
