Kai Allen made it all the way to the Grand Final in a brilliant rookie season. Can he claim the #1 in 2026?
Kai Allen started the 2025 Supercars season as a rookie teenager. He finished it as a Grand Finalist.
Five podiums in his first full-time campaign was a fine return for the former Super2 champion as he settled into the main game, with a strong Finals Series showing his trajectory was pointed well and truly the right way.
The 20-year-old also welcomes ex-Ferrari Formula One performance engineer Riccardo Corte as his new race engineer in 2026, making for a fascinating new dynamic in Allen's second season.
A Super2 champion in 2023, Allen returned to the development series in 2024 and ran the #1 as a warning shot to his rivals.
His rookie season was superb, with Allen outlasting Zak Best in a dramatic year to emerge victorious. It wasn't quite to be in 2024, Zach Bates beating Allen to the title.
Allen began his career in karting at eight years old, winning 12 state titles and becoming the Australian Karting Champion in both the Cadet 12 and KA2 Junior classes plus racing overseas across a six-year span.
He began his graduation to car racing in 2021 with a move to the Gold Coast, Paul Morris taking him under his wing at the Norwell Motorplex.
Initially looking to race Formula Ford, mentor Morris instead guided Allen towards competing in Hyundai Excels ahead of making a handful of appearances in the Toyota GAZOO Racing Australia 86 Series, finishing on the podium on debut in Townsville and turning heads with second-row qualifying performances at Sydney Motorsport Park and Mount Panorama.
A move to Super3 with Eggleston Motorsport led to Allen rewriting sections of the series' record book: he claimed 11 out of 12 pole positions, set a new record for the largest pole-winning margin (over five seconds at Bathurst), four new lap records and tied the record for the most race and round wins in a single season. However, a crash at Adelaide's infamous Turn 8 in the final race of the season led him to finish second in the final standings.
Allen is also not the only sportsperson in his family: older sisters Sienna and Nyah are elite-level netballers who both played for the Collingwood Magpies in the Super Netball league.
He also made his Great Race debut in 2023 aboard a Dick Johnson Racing Mustang with none other than Simona De Silvestro, before racing with Will Davison in 2024 as part of a development deal with the iconic team.