Expert Preview: Is Taupō the ultimate Toyota track?

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.

Does a Toyota in Taupo equal a win? Aaron Cameron's contradicting records, the return of the Super Soft, and why history's 83% top 10 prediction might not hold this year.

The first leg of the New Zealand double-header has plenty of sub-plots, as explained below.

Is Taupō the ultimate Toyota track?

The pace of the Toyotas during the opening two events has surprised everyone. At Albert Park, there was at least one Toyota ranked in the top five for pace during all four races.

We now head to Taupō, which has the lowest time spent at full throttle and the equal lowest average speed of any circuit we visit. This should favour the Toyotas.

I'm getting flashbacks to 2013 when the new Nissan Supercar, which had performed similarly to the Toyota in its early life, surprised everyone at Winton, a circuit very similar to Taupō.

Toyota's rate of improvement over the first seven races, combined with Taupō's ideal layout could see them spring another surprise with a spot on the top step of the podium.

Cameron's contrasting records

After seven races, Aaron Cameron is the number two ranked qualifier. His average qualifying position of 4.7 compared to 19.4 from last year is an improvement no driver has even come close to bettering in the last 20 years.

Unfortunately, he also holds another record that no one has come close to in 20 years. He's gone backwards in every race so far this season, losing a whopping 86 positions in seven races.

Speak to any driver though, and they'd rather have the qualifying speed and the poor race results than the other way around. He's a lot closer to a maiden race win starting each race at the front than he is at the back.

Taupō will hopefully see an end to his run of race dramas and confirmation that he deserves to be fighting for podiums.

The return of the Super Soft tyre

This weekend's first Super 440 format of the season sees the return of the DUNLOP Super Soft tyre.

Cam Waters and Will Brown were two drivers whose qualifying results last season suggested they preferred the Super Soft. Championship leader Matt Payne was the opposite, qualifying an average of three spots worse on the Super Softs across the season.

Waters will be looking to continue his great start to the year which has so far seen him significantly improve his Tyre Degradation ranking relative to the field. It was his weakness last year, and this weekend presents the ultimate litmus test: the higher-wearing Super Soft tyre on the Taupō circuit: ranked #2 for tyre wear.

Is the top 10 already decided?

Historically, if you're in the top 10 of the championship after seven races, there's an 83% chance you'll still be there at the end of the season. So is the top 10 basically already decided?

While history is generally a good predictor of the future, I'm not locking anyone in just yet with still 23 races to come before the Finals. Knocking on the door of the top 10 are Andre Heimgartner and Will Brown, both previous Taupō winners.

Heimgartner was so close to making the finals last year while Brown hasn't finished any Gen3 season worse than fifth.

Matt Stone Racing's history repeating?

There's plenty of positives coming from Matt Stone Racing's start to the season despite it not returning as much silverware as their start last year.

A new driver line-up always takes time to gel, but what we've seen is Jack Le Brocq flying under the radar by avoiding trouble and recording his best ever start to a season, sitting sixth in the championship.

For Zach Bates, despite all the trouble he's found himself in, his qualifying performances have been exceptional. In the last 20 years, only Scott McLaughlin, Broc Feeney, and Matt Payne have had a better qualifying average than Bates in the first seven races of their careers.

Last year, MSR faded as the season progressed, but this year might be the opposite, especially if Bates can convert his qualifying performances into race results.

The verdict

If the opening two events are anything to go by, this weekend will again be action-packed.

Taupō's Toyota-friendly layout and the Super Soft's return alone should be enough to shuffle the pack and provide more of the great racing we've seen so far.

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.