Supercars’ four grand finalists are locked in after a dramatic finish to the Sandown semi-finals on Sunday.
Championship leader Matt Payne claimed victory to secure his place as the top seed for Adelaide’s decider — but there was more heartbreak for Anton De Pasquale just weeks after running out of fuel from the lead on the last lap of the Bathurst 1000.
The Team 18 racer just missed the cut for the final four despite finishing second on Sunday, after reigning champion Chaz Mostert moved up from 11th on the grid to finish fifth and secure the points required.
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Payne and Mostert will be joined in the grand final by Broc Feeney and Saturday’s race winner Brodie Kostecki.
De Pasquale needed to win the race to secure a golden ticket to the decider but was unable to haul in Payne in the closing stages.
There was a theory Payne could move aside to let De Pasquale win, thereby eliminating the dangerous Mostert, but Grove Racing boss Stephen Grove said “we’re here to win”.
He did flag “managing risk” if De Pasquale started to “do some crazy things” and their Camaro rival closed to within a second of Payne, who was hobbled by lapped traffic with three laps to go.
“They’re not getting out of the f***ing way,” Payne screamed over team radio.
De Pasquale crossed the finish line seven tenths shy of Payne and the grand final.
“Not much more we could’ve done there,” De Pasquale told his team, but it was a case of what could have been had he banked championship points with a Bathurst win.
“Obviously there wasn’t much really said or needed to be said about what went down there (at Mount Panorama),” De Pasquale said in his podium interview.
“Everyone knew what we did and what we could’ve achieved. We were able to push that aside — obviously it still hurts, and I still lose sleep over it now, but we’re able to put that aside to focus on the days that we have and race as hard as we can.”
Arguably Supercars’ four best drivers will battle it out for the title in Adelaide later this month.
Payne missed the grand final last year but has had only a couple of difficult weekends this season.
Feeney was in the box seat for the 2025 title until an infamous grand final clash with Walkinshaw’s Ryan Wood and his own engine dramas.
Kostecki, the reigning Bathurst champion, has a championship-best nine wins this season.
And Mostert knows exactly how to win the title in Adelaide — even if this year he’s in a new car, with Walkinshaw’s transition from the Mustang to Supra proving no barrier, and facing the biggest points mountain to climb.
Meanwhile, Cooper Murray starred to nab his first Supercars podium in just his second race weekend PremiAir following his mid-season switch from Erebus.
Triple Eight’s Will Brown recovered from a shocking qualifying to finish seventh but it wasn’t enough to put him in the mix for the grand final.
Tickford’s Cam Waters only finished 15th in a quiet finish to his championship bid.
