The shock stats behind Finals' biggest nearly man

Supercars Finals have delivered their fair share of heartbreakers over their short history. However, few have a tale to tell quite like Andre Heimgartner.

Twice in two years the Kiwi has been the unlucky 11th driver to miss out, being knocked out within sight of the chequered flag by Broc Feeney last year, before Jack Le Brocq saved his best weekend of the season for this year's Bathurst 1000.

Rubbing salt into the wound, Heimgartner has starred on the Gold Coast in the last two years, picking up a podium in 2025, before securing two fifths in his maiden run around Surfers Paradise in a Toyota.

Heimgartner still became a central part of Sunday's Finals rollercoaster, applying such pressure to Toyota stablemate Ryan Wood that the young gun's Walkinshaw TWG Racing teammate Chaz Mostert had to drop 10 seconds to split the pair.

A winner in Tasmania earlier this season, Heimgartner was glad to have had the speed to battle with the Finals contenders at Surfers Paradise, even if it came one weekend too late.

"Yeah it's always good," Heimgartner reflected on Supercars' Equip Super Cool Down Lap podcast.

"It's something that I guess is new to our sport in some ways, and it's good, it's bad, whatever.

"I guess we're just happy that we're fast enough to be a problem and have to do what we sort of did, but it's all about the bigger picture.

"It's a shame we couldn't make it, but we'll fight on."

Heimgartner missed the cut by 114 points, his season starting on the back foot with an engine failure in Sydney, before another engine issue in Townsville saw the Kiwi all but concede defeat on his title aspirations.

At Bathurst, the Kiwi revealed a mixed response when asked if he was disappointed to miss the cut: "Yes and no, I mean last year was harder because it was only a few points, so that really sucked. But this year we just didn't do a good enough job throughout the year.

"It's annoying for sure. Generally we have a really strong finish to the year, so it would've been cool to be in there and be fighting."

However, if the engine failures hadn't occurred, it turns out Heimgartner and BJR would've done a good enough job. Taking the points from where he was running at the time of said failures, Heimgartner would've scraped into 10th by just one point.

Such was the performance of the #8 Supra on the Gold Coast, that he would've also cruised into the top seven for Sandown, ahead of Cam Waters.

In a cruel twist, had Feeney not overtaken him on the last lap in Bathurst in 2025, Heimgartner would once again have entered Sandown as the sixth seed.

Yet, Heimgartner has hit the top 10 one round too late, a points change for 2026 now placing him ahead of Le Brocq after the Matt Stone Racing driver lost his Finals bonuses.

2026 post-Gold Coast standings, had Heimgartner qualified

2025 post-Gold Coast standings, had Heimgartner qualified