This is an exclusive pre-event Supercars.com column by championship-winning Race Engineer Scott Sinclair. Sinclair will preview and debrief each round of the 2026 Repco Supercars Championship from his own perspective.
Seven drivers, four Grand Final spots. By Sunday night, three title campaigns will be over. I’ve gone through each driver’s season and Sandown history to see what could get them to Adelaide, and what could stop them.
1st) Matt Payne
Matt Payne boasts the strongest all-round numbers of anyone this year. He's ranked #1 for average finish and #1 for race pace on both tyre compounds, and he’s been overtaken just 22 times — the fewest in the field.
12 months ago, his Super Soft tyre qualifying was one of his weaknesses. He's since turned it into a strength and is now the best Super Soft qualifier in the field, averaging 2.4 and qualifying top five in all seven Super Soft sessions this year.
Sandown qualifying is his weak spot. He’s never qualified inside the top five here, and that matters, because all five of his wins this year have come from the top three on the grid. His form has also cooled since his last win in Perth, with an average finish of 8.8 over the last six races, well off his season average of 5.6.
His path to the Grand Final: Two fourth place finishes guarantee him a spot, whatever anyone else does.
Raise the alarm if: He picks a fight he doesn’t need — the same misjudgement that ended his Finals run here last year.
2nd) Broc Feeney
Broc Feeney has finished top four in each of his last five Sandown races, and his Gen3 average finish here is 2.0.
The race format suits him too. He has the best average finish of anyone in this year’s 200–250 km races, the distance range both Sandown races fall into.
His tyre degradation ranking is the big change, dropping from #8 last year to #21 in his first season in the Mustang. A major cause is that he’s spent nearly twice as much time in traffic compared to last year — the fifth-most of anyone. That ties into the fact he still needs to start up front: none of his 59 Gen3 podiums have come from further back than sixth on the grid.
His path to the Grand Final: Qualify in the first two rows and let Sandown do the rest.
Raise the alarm if: He's starting outside the top six.
3rd) Brodie Kostecki
Once Brodie Kostecki is in front of you, he's very hard to shift. He's held off 50 of the 68 attacks he's faced in dry races this year (74%), the best defensive rate of anyone. He's also the only one of the seven finalists to have finished ahead of each of the other six more often than not.
Give him a top four start and he'll usually finish on the podium. He's converted 17 of 21 this year (81%), better than anyone.
The flip side is just as stark. From fifth or worse on the grid in the Gen3 era, he has just two podiums from 49 starts (4%), the lowest of the seven finalists. All 19 of his Gen3 wins have come when he's started on the first two rows of the grid.
His path to the Grand Final: Do what he's done all season: qualify on the front row and make himself difficult to pass.
Raise the alarm if: He’s starting from fifth or worse.
4th) Chaz Mostert
Chaz Mostert is Mr. Finals. He's finished top four in all nine Finals races since the format began last year: four wins, eight podiums and an average finish of 1.9. He's also won every Finals race on the Super Soft, Saturday's tyre.
If it rains, he's even more dangerous. He has the best wet-race record of the current drivers: three wins and six podiums from 15 wet starts.
His season has been bumpy though. His 9.4 average race finish is the lowest of the seven, and he's ranked 23rd for race-result consistency.
Sound familiar? 12 months ago, he went into the Finals averaging 9.5 and came out the other side as champion.
His path to the Grand Final: Treat it like every other Finals race.
Raise the alarm if: He doesn’t have the pace to move forward early in the races — this is his telltale.
5th) Will Brown
Nobody’s scored more points than Will Brown over the last six races, all of them since his undersized restrictor was found before Queensland Raceway. He's gone from eighth for points in the first half of the season to second in the second half. But he did struggle on the Gold Coast. Whether that was a one-off or not remains to be seen.
Sandown’s his best Gen3 track. He averages 2.5 here in the Gen3 era, has been on the podium in each of his last three Sandown races, and his race pace last year was streets ahead of everyone else.
Whether Brown will have the raw speed this weekend is the great unknown. He’s only won a single race this year — his lowest return to this point since 2022. And while he’s ranked #1 for his ability to attack, qualifying remains a lingering vulnerability from last year. That’s particularly relevant this weekend: he and teammate Feeney are the only same-team pairing still in the Finals, and with Feeney leading the qualifying head-to-head 21–11, the threat of a double-stack pit stop scenario under a Safety Car is very real.
His path to the Grand Final: Race pace like last year, not like the Gold Coast.
Raise the alarm if: He’s behind Feeney when a Safety Car appears.
6th) Cam Waters
Cam Waters’ consistency has improved significantly this year. He's climbed from 24th to eighth for qualifying consistency and from 17th to fourth for race-result consistency. He's also the best Shootout improver in the field, gaining places in eight of his nine (dry) Shootouts.
And surprisingly, he has the best average finish across the season of anyone on the Soft tyre (5.3).
The Super Soft is a different story. His average drops to 9.0, the biggest drop-off of the seven finalists. He also hasn’t won a race on the Super Soft tyre in the last two seasons.
His Sandown form is a contradiction. In the Gen3 era, he’s the third-best of the Finals drivers in qualifying (5.5 average), but no one has lost more places between start and finish: 9.3 a race. Add a podium drought stretching back 10 races, and a Tickford team that’s gone seven races without a top five finish for the first time since 2007, and there are a few trends to reverse.
His path to the Grand Final: Cash in what he qualifies.
Raise the alarm if: Saturday's Super Soft race gets away from him.
7th) Anton De Pasquale
Anton De Pasquale is having his best season of the Gen3 era by every measure. Last year, Sandown was his strongest weekend of the season and we’ve seen this year that the Camaros like the long straights Sandown is famous for. It’s also his best Gen3 qualifying venue.
De Pasquale’s challenge is converting in the races after qualifying well. He's turned only two of nine top four starts into podiums this year, and five of 25 across the Gen3 era (20%), the lowest of anyone with 10 or more top four starts. Ranked fifth for qualifying but 10th for race pace, the lack of pace is a killer.
His recent form is also a concern. He's 14th for points over the last six races, and has been the lowest-placed of the seven finalists in nine races this year, the most of the group.
His path to the Grand Final: Race pace to match his qualifying speed — when that happens, he’s converted six of eight this year.
Raise the alarm if: He drifts backwards early in the race.
My Grand Final Four prediction
So, who makes it to Adelaide?
Payne, Kostecki and Feeney make it with the speed they’ve shown this year and the points head start they’ve got.
Mostert and Brown are left fighting for that final ticket. Both have shown blisteringly fast pace at times, and both have looked lost at others. But I think Brown gets it done because it's Sandown.
De Pasquale and Waters have to overcome a points deficit and a recent run of mediocre results. Their hope is others’ misfortune, or the guaranteed ticket to Adelaide a race win provides. Both of them are capable, on their day...
Scott Sinclair is one of the most respected voices in pit lane, famously engineering James Courtney to the 2010 championship with Dick Johnson Racing. Sinclair also spent stints at the Holden Racing Team and Kelly Racing, spent time on the Supercars Commission, and recently joined Supercars as a data analyst.
The views in this article do not necessarily express the opinions of Supercars, teams or drivers.
