Toyota, Chaz Mostert piecing together ultimate Adelaide joker
Mostert the only non-Ford driver in the 2026 Grand Final in Adelaide
Mostert has won three races, behind Broc Feeney, Matt Payne, Broc Feeney
It has been a slow burn at times, but right when it matters most, Toyota have finally started to string together all of the pieces of a title challenge.
Chaz Mostert will enter Adelaide with a chance to defend his 2025 title, qualifying for the bp Adelaide Grand Final after a nervy Sunday as Anton De Pasquale narrowly missed bumping out the reigning champion with a win.
Regardless of whether or not Mostert can wrap up back-to-back titles on the streets of Adelaide, he will secure the best ever championship finish for an all-new manufacturer in Supercars, surpassing Scott McLaughlin's fifth place finish in Volvo's debut season in 2014.
While it has been at times bumpy introduction, when the Supra has been on, it has proven to be a genuinely competitive package. As the season has worn on, that has become increasingly the case, with both Mostert and Brad Jones Racing's Andre Heimgartner showing plenty of speed.
Arriving in Adelaide as the fourth seed among the final four gives Mostert the platform he needs to go all-out attack in all three races, as he looks to turn around a 72-point deficit.
Mostert is the only non-Ford in the final four, which could prove a valuable point of difference. When asked on Supercars' Cool Down Lap presented by Equip Super if the Supra can power Mostert to back-to-back titles, engineer Sam Scaffidi's response was firm: "Yeah, for sure.
"We've just got to get all the pieces right, and that's probably the biggest thing we've been struggling with.
"First year for this car, and learning the strengths and weaknesses of it has probably been the biggest thing, and we're slowly starting to put it together now, which is good.
"Adelaide, tough place for us, kind of going there last year in the position we were in, and obviously [Matt] Payne won that last race, so he's super quick there.
"We'll just kind of re-evaluate where we're at and go again, and piece it all together."
After having on average the fastest car of the weekend on the Gold Coast, Sandown was much more of a struggle for Mostert in terms of raw speed, starting well behind the eight ball in Friday practice.
But where pace could've let him down, Mostert's elite race craft and dogged determination dragged the #1 Supra back into the fight, charging from 10th to fourth on Saturday, and from 11th to fifth on Sunday.
It was far from comfortable inside the WTWGR garage as well, Scaffidi adding that his blood pressure was still yet to drop in the hours following Sunday's race: "Not quite, I'm still waiting for the stress levels to come down.
"It was a great job today by all the crew, all weekend really. We didn't start real great at the start of the weekend, and kind of clawed our way back into it,
"Car pace wasn't really where we wanted to be this weekend, but going to Adelaide will probably suit us a little bit better, which is nice. We'll see how we go."
Track action in Adelaide commences on Thursday November 26.
