Every finalist’s form guide for the first weekend of Supercars finals, points leader Matt Payne, defending champion Chaz Mostert, street race, points table, start time

The Supercars season is finished, but the Supercars finals are only just beginning.

The knockout rounds are upon us, and for the second consecutive season, the points have been reset, giving any driver inside the top 10 a genuine shot at winning the championship.

Only 150 points separate first from 10th for this weekend’s Gold Coast 500, where the field will be whittled down to seven.

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Seven will become four after Sandown early next month, and those four will duel for the title in the Adelaide Grand Final at the end of November.

The introduction of the finals has changed the complexion of the championship. No longer about long-term consistency, it’s now all about form at the crucial time of the season.

Who will start this weekend’s Gold Coast round in good form — and where will they start on the points table?

1. MATT PAYNE (GROVE): 3150 POINTS

Wins: 5 (from last five starts: 0)

Podiums: 17 (from last five starts: 1)

Poles: 7 (from last five starts: 2)

Last year’s championship: 5th

Matt Payne owes his points lead to his supreme consistency this year, raising the floor of last year’s strong but imperfect performances.

But he doesn’t arrive in top form, having endured a complicated endurance campaign off the back of his heartbreaking last-race loss of the Sprint Cup to Broc Feeney in Ipswich.

Still, Grove has been the top-performing team this season, and Payne has finished outside the top eight only twice all season. He hasn’t finished outside the top seven — the crucial finals cut-off — since Tasmania way back in May.

It all bodes well for the championship favourite — but Supercars has moved past the days of consistency winning titles. It might get him to Adelaide, but the driver who can best time their strongest blow will walk away with the championship.

This weekend would be a good opportunity to start practising his punches.

2. BROC FEENEY (TRIPLE EIGHT): 3145 POINTS

Wins: 6 (from last five: 1)

Podiums: 13 (from last five: 2)

Poles: 4 (from last five: 0)

Last year’s championship: 3rd

The Sprint Cup winner was nowhere during the endurance rounds, reinstating some of the serious question marks about Broc Feeney’s title hopes.

Triple Eight’s season has been a roller-coaster as it grapples with the switch from Chevrolet to Ford. At some weekends it’s looked back to its devastating best, and Feeney led the points table through the middle of the season.

Consistency, though, has been lacking, and at other weekends Triple Eight has been way off the pace. After dominating qualifying last year, on average Feeney has been qualifying just off the third row. As was clear at the Bend — albeit in treacherous conditions — that’s far enough back to be in the danger zone of a chaotic start that can ruin a race.

The Sprint Cup was a victory in tenacity but also fortune, with Payne’s engine failing at the crucial moment. Feeney knows he can’t count on the same getting him through to Adelaide.

After falling heartachingly short of the championship last year, Feeney and Triple Eight have yet to prove they can go all the way this year.

3. WILL BROWN (TRIPLE EIGHT): 3103 POINTS

Wins: 1 (from last five: 1)

Podiums: 6 (from last five: 4)

Poles: 2 (from last five: 1)

Last year’s championship: 2nd

After a mostly disappointing season, Will Brown will start the finals as one of the most in-form drivers in the field.

His understated Enduro Cup victory attests to it, with fourth in Tailem Bend and second in Bathurst getting him and Scott Pye over the line.

It’s more than that, though. The infamous air restrictor debacle was the start of a timely turnaround, with brown winning his first race of the season just four starts ago as part of a perfect set of three podiums in Ipswich. Almost all his best results, either in qualifying or in race trim, have come from the last month or so of action.

The 2024 champion hasn’t looked much like his title-winning self for the last two years, and Triple Eight’s form remains a considerable question mark, but Brown suddenly looks in good shape to go deep.

4. BRODIE KOSTECKI (DICK JOHNSON RACING): 3096 POINTS

Wins: 8 (from last five: 2)

Podiums: 17 (from last five: 4)

Poles: 7 (from last five: 1)

Last year’s championship: 9th

Does winning Bathurst give a driver a finals boost? Payne last year got no meaningful momentum from it, scraping through the Gold Coast before being eliminated at Sandown.

But Brodie Kostecki is in better form than just having won Bathurst. Debatably the driver with the biggest peaks this season and with only a painful weekend in Perth counting him out of the Sprint Cup, the 2023 champion has been formidable in his second season with Dick Johnson Racing.

The team is also rising to better form after being freed from the burden of being the Ford homologation team.

Off the back of Kostecki’s form, the DJR Mustang has been the fastest car in the field over a single lap, on average lapping just 0.119s off the fastest time each weekend. It’s also among the top three most consistent qualifiers on the grid.

Unsurprisingly, Kostecki has the best qualifying average of any driver, with an average result of 3.5, fractionally ahead of Payne.

The summary is that Kostecki and DJR are rolling out comfortably more often than not — exactly what you need when there are no second chances in the finals.

5. KAI ALLEN (GROVE): 3066 POINTS

Wins: 2 (from last five: 0)

Podiums: 8 (from last five: 1)

Poles: 0 (best start: 2nd)

Last year’s championship: 4th

Kai Allen stunned by sneaking into last year’s grand final, having only just squeaked into the finals during the endurance season, but this year there’s no question he belongs up front.

Allen has taken a considerable step forward this year, and though his senior teammate still unsurprisingly leads the way for Grove, Allen has more than just contributed to Grove leading Triple Eight in the teams championship.

He was strong in the Bend to finish second, though he and Grove underwhelmed in Bathurst. He also had a quiet week off the podium in Ipswich, the last of the sprints, to complete a tale of mixed form heading into the finals.

Allen, though, has demonstrated he’s able to pull big performances out when it counts, and given the Bend-esque wet weather forecast this weekend, recent history suggests he’s one of the favourites to make it at least as far as Sandown.

6. CAM WATERS (TICKFORD): 3057 POINTS

Wins: 2 (from last five: 0)

Podiums: 7 (from last five: 0)

Poles: 3 (from last five: 0)

Last year’s championship: 6th

Cam Waters hasn’t played the major part in the bulk of the season that he’d have hoped to, but there’s one particular bright spot from his campaign that could signal a bigger role for him in the finals.

His second-strongest weekend — after almost sweeping the round in Darwin — was Townsville, the only true street track in the Sprint Cup.

Townville has become an analogue for the finals, when two of the three tracks are on public roads, including this weekend’s Gold Coast 500.

Two podiums, including a win, and two front-row starts, including a pole, amounted to a promising finals preview that Tickford will be hoping to build on in the knockout rounds.

Chaz Mostert proved last year that good finals form is all that matters in the championship chase. He also, as it happens, finished the regular season sixth.

Could Waters and Tickford be about to repeat history?

7. ANTON DE PASQUALE (TEAM 18): 3048 POINTS

Wins: 2 (from last five: 0)

Podiums: 5 (from last five: 0)

Poles: 1 (from last five: 0)

Last year’s championship: 8th

The highest-placed Chevrolet entry came achingly close to taking a Bathurst victory into the finals. Instead he’ll start the knockout rounds with no wins, poles or podiums to show for his last five starts.

That’s far more a function of his car than it is him, however. The Camaro has rarely been at the races this season, to use a phrase, as the sport’s parity debate bubbles away in the background.

Bu De Pasquale has been the driver to deliver when the car has been in good form. His two wins are the only two for the Camaro this season, and he’s claimed four of the marque’s five front-row starts, with Zach Bates’s sensational Bathurst pole the only other P1 qualification.

The odds of a Camaro driver winning the title this season are long, but if any of them are going to do the unexpected, De Pasquale is the driver to do it.

8. CHAZ MOSTERT (WALKINSHAW TWG): 3039 POINTS

Wins: 2 (from last five: 1)

Podiums: 3 (from last five: 1)

Poles: 1 (from last five: 0)

Last year’s championship: 1st

You should never discount a reigning champion, particularly one who’s already proved that you can win the title from surprising places on the points table.

Chaz Mostert won the title from sixth last season. This year he starts lower but with Walkinshaw’s Toyota project in improving shape. He won in Tailem Bend, just two races ago, and though the regional South Australian circuit bears no resemblance to the streets of the Gold Coast, the forecast for heavy rain is certainly shared.

Mostert and his Toyota looked superb in the tricky conditions, and his team passed the mixed weather acid test with flying colours. That gives him a good chance of moving up at least a place in the order to secure passage to Sandown — and with the Supra improving with seemingly every weekend, that could see him make a lunge for Adelaide with a chance to defend his crown.

9. RYAN WOOD (WALKINSHAW TWG): 3030 POINTS

Wins: 1 (from last five: 0)

Podiums: 7 (from last five: 1)

Poles: 2 (from last five: 0)

Last year’s championship: 10th

Ryan Wood’s season has been one of highs and lows. Arguably the driver to get the most from the Supra this season, he’s also suffered the equal second-most DNFs of the season, behind only teammate Mostert.

On average slightly quicker than Mostert in qualifying this season and more willing to get his elbows out — famously or infamously, depending on your perspective — he adds something of a wildcard element to the finals. In a crunch final phase of a race to decide who makes it through to Sandown or Adelaide, he’d be among the drivers you’d least want to have to pass — or defend against. That’s the sort of reputation that could make a difference in the knockout rounds.

10. JACK LE BROCQ (MATT STONE RACING): 3021 POINTS

Wins: 0 (best finish: 4th)

Podiums: 0

Poles: 0 (best start: 5th)

Last year’s championship: 17th

Matt Stone Racing’s Jack Le Brocq is the finals outlier — though that should be read with no disrespect. In a tight, scrappy and sometimes crash-prone midfield, Le Brocq put himself above the fray to pinch the last berth ultimately comfortably, with the buffer growing beyond 100 points in Bathurst, where fourth place sealed the deal for him.

But with a Camaro under him, with no standout results to his name so far this season and with only two top-seven results from his last 20 starts, it would take a perfect weekend and some good fortune to see him at Sandown still in the hunt.

But then again, the beauty of the finals is that he just might make it regardless.

HOW CAN I WATCH IT?

The Supercars Gold Coast 500 is live and ad-break free during racing on Kayo Sports and Fox Sports.

Friday

Practice 1: 12:45pm (AEDT)

Practice 2: 2:40pm

Qualifying (race 1): 5:05pm

Saturday

Top-10 shootout (race 1): 1:35pm

Race 1 (85 laps): 4:15pm

Sunday

Qualifying (race 2)

Top-10 shootout (race 2): 1:05pm

Race 2 (85 laps): 3:45pm