Payne claims vital pole, Mostert makes costly mistake

Championship leader Matt Payne has claimed a vital pole for the opening race of the 2026 Penrite Oil Sandown 500, beating Ford rival Cam Waters to Shootout honours.

Payne returned to qualifying form after a lean period for Penrite Racing, and will start alongside his 2025 Sandown adversary Waters on the front row.

It was a dramatic hour of qualifying, highlighted by a big off for Chaz Mostert in the Boost Mobile Top Ten Shootout, with the reigning champion set to start 10th after qualifying third.

Race 33 of the 2026 Repco Supercars Championship will commence at 3:30pm AEDT.

Q1

The field rolled out on wet tyres as qualifying began, but the track was rapidly drying as water was dispersed, and the sun beamed down on Sandown.

Bathurst champion Brodie Kostecki topped the timesheets through the opening stanza on a 1:13.2618s. However, such was the rate of improvement in track conditions, that there was a genuine choice to make on tyres.

The majority of the field chose to go for the dry Super Soft tyre, which proved to be the right call. Notably, Red Bull Ampol Racing ace Broc Feeney made the late switch to a dry tyre after one out lap on his new set of wets.

Conditions were still very tricky, with the top end of the circuit from Turns 1 to 3 still very damp, as Mostert and Kai Allen both found when they took the shortcut through the mud at Turn 3.

Times tumbled in the dying seconds, with Tickford Racing driver Thomas Randle going fastest on a 1:11.3117s ahead of teammate and Finals contender Waters.

Both Feeney and Mostert lifted themselves out of the drop zone on their final flyers. Jarrod Hughes, Macauley Jones, Rylan Gray, David Reynolds, Cameron Hill, and Allen were eliminated, the latter triggering a kerb hop after a wild moment at Turn 6 on his last run.

Kostecki also vented his frustrations with Aaron Cameron after the pair collided at Turn 4.

Q2

Times were immediately considerably faster than Randle's Q1 benchmark as the track continued to dry, Payne going fastest on a 1:08.8839s, some two and a half seconds up on the Randle marker.

Feeney then went marginally quicker on a 1:08.7740s, while Anton De Pasquale and Mostert found themselves on the outside of the top 10 with one final run.

Walkinshaw TWG Racing elected to gamble on tyres, changing just two tyres ahead of Mostert's final run, with the reigning champion also running slightly out of sequence of the other 17 cars on track.

Camaro trio Cooper Murray, Jayden Ojeda and Jobe Stewart all bowled wides through Turn 6 as the first cars in the queue, with Murray lucky to pull up his #36 PremiAir entry at Dandenong Road.

De Pasquale quickly improved his position into the top 10, while Kostecki also had to lift himself in after picking up a kerb strike. Kostecki rose to second, while Mostert left until the absolute last moment to go third, putting all seven Finalists into the Shootout. Payne secured provisional pole on a 1:08.408s,

Murray edged Zach Bates out of the Shootout by just 0.0001s, with Ryan Wood, Cameron, James Golding, Ojeda, Jack Le Brocq, Stewart and Jackson Walls also missing out.

Top Ten Shootout

Murray made his second Shootout in three attempts with PremiAir Racing, and set a 1:09.3919s for the field to chase with four green tyres. 2024 champion Will Brown immediately beat that with a 1:09.2398s.

Andre Heimgartner's lap was ruined by an awkward run through Turns 2 and 3, while De Pasquale had an even hairier moment through Turn 6, that carried on right the way down into the braking zone at Dandenong Road.

Feeney looked as though he was on track to knock over his teammate, before catching a puddle on turn-in at the final corner, while Randle also lost time hitting the same puddle.

There were contrasting fortunes for the next two runners, Waters nailing a 1:09.1050s to knock Brown out of first, whilst Mostert pushed too hard through Turn 6, and ended up in the gravel at Turn 9.

Kostecki looked set to claim a crucial pole with the fastest cumulative time through the first two sectors, but caught some of the gravel dragged back on the road by Mostert, and missed out by just 0.0325s.

That left Payne standing between Waters and his first pole since Townsville in July, and while it wasn't a spectacular lap, it was fast enough for pole, a 1:09.2054s just 0.0796s clear of Waters.