Drivers, teams, cars, championship: 2026 Supercars Beginner's Guide

The Repco Supercars Championship returns to the streets of Melbourne, performing on the world stage at the Formula 1 QATAR AIRWAYS Australian Grand Prix.

The Melbourne SuperSprint is Supercars in its punchiest format, featuring four breathless lights-to-flag sprint races that pack in a heap of action.

This year, Supercars has a very different look to the field that rolled out 12 months ago, with no less than 15 entries having some form of change in the off-season.

If you're new to Supercars, or an F1 fan returning to the series following last year's Melbourne SuperSprint, here is everything you need to know about the 2026 Repco Supercars Championship.

Drivers

2026 represents one of the biggest generational shifts ever seen in the history of the championship.

The grid for the opening round of the season just a week and a half ago in Sydney was the youngest grid ever assembled in the 66-year history of the Australian Touring Car Championship, breaking the previous record set in 2008.

This was largely boosted by the addition of five rookies into this year's field; 19-year-old Rylan Gray, 21 year-olds Zach Bates and Jobe Stewart, 23-year-old Jackson Walls, and 26-year-old Jayden Ojeda.

Three drivers on the grid are the last three Supercars champions, namely Brodie Kostecki (2023), Will Brown (2024), and reigning champion Chaz Mostert.

The winningest drivers on the grid are Mostert and Broc Feeney, who have both won 28 career races between them, and are tied with Supercars legends Greg Murphy and Marcos Ambrose in 13th on the all-time wins list.

Teams

The Supercars grid is made up of 24 cars entered by 12 teams, with 10 teams running two cars, one team a three-car operation, and the remaining car entered by a single car team.

The benchmark team in Supercars is Red Bull Ampol Racing, who since entering the sport in 2003 have won 11 drivers' championships, 11 Bathurst 1000s, and 13 teams championships.

Behind them is a fierce group of contenders, who have all got runs on the board in beating Triple Eight on occasion, with Penrite Racing winning last year's Bathurst 1000, and Walkinshaw TWG Racing taking Mostert to a maiden drivers' title.

Tickford Racing, Dick Johnson Racing, and Erebus Motorsport are also championship-winning organisations running in the championship.

There are also plenty of underdog teams who can fight for wins on their day, such as Matt Stone Racing, Blanchard Racing Team, Brad Jones Racing, and PremiAir Racing.

Races

This year's championship will take in 37 races, spanning 14 events across Australia and New Zealand.

Races vary in length, from short sprint races between 80-120km long, through to the traditional 1000km, two-driver endurance classic at the Bathurst 1000.

The races at the Australian Grand Prix run to a unique format, being the only four-race event of the season, and the only races with no pit stops.

Races on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday will be 19 laps (or 105km), whilst the finale on Sunday is the shortest races of the year at just 80km - or 14 laps of Albert Park.

Championship

Introduced last year, the championship continues to be run over three distinct segments, namely the Repco Sprint Cup, Ryco Enduro Cup, and the Repco Supercars Finals Series.

The first segment of the season is the Sprint Cup, which comprises of 28 races across nine events, with races up to 200km in length.

The Enduro Cup introduces co-drivers into the mix for two long-distance races, a 500km race at The Bend Motorsport Park in South Australia, before the iconic Repco Bathurst 1000 finalises the 10 Finals Drivers.

The winners of the Sprint and Enduro Cups are decided on points accumulation, and gain automatic Finals berths, with the remaining eight spots decided by the highest points scores across the entire season to Bathurst.

All 24 drivers compete in the Finals, however only 10 can win the championship. The lowest three ranked Finals Drivers are eliminated after the Elimination Final on the Gold Coast, before the process is repeated at the Sandown Semi Final.

That leaves four Finals Drivers fighting for the championship at the bp Adelaide Grand Final. The Gold Coast and Sandown feature two 250km races, whilst Adelaide adds a 100km sprint race on the Friday.

Cars

Three different cars are used in the Repco Supercars Championship, namely the Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, the Ford Mustang GT, and the brand-new Toyota GR Supra.

All three cars use V8 engines, and send 650 horsepower straight to the rear wheels through a six-speed sequential stick shift.

Supercars don't utilise driver aids such as traction control, ABS, or automatic paddle shifters, making for one of the rawest racing products in the world.

Tyres

DUNLOP are the official tyre supplier of the Repco Supercars Championship.

Much like Formula One, there is a Soft and a Super Soft variant of the DUNLOP Sport Maxx tyre, however unlike F1 only a single compound is used in any given race.

The Soft tyre was a new-construction tyre in 2025, and will be used throughout the weekend at Albert Park.