Matt Payne Wins Sandown Finale; Supercars Final Four Set
Matt Payne won the 2026 Penrite Oil Sandown 500 finale on Sunday, November 8, beating Anton De Pasquale by 0.739 seconds and securing a place in the Supercars Grand Final. The result completed a four-driver title field of Payne, Brodie Kostecki, Chaz Mostert and Broc Feeney for Adelaide later this month.
The official Race 34 classification lists Payne’s No. 19 Penrite Racing Ford Mustang first after 79 laps in 1 hour, 33 minutes and 33.462 seconds. De Pasquale finished second for DEWALT Racing, with Cooper Murray third for PremiAir Racing. Feeney and Mostert completed the top five.
Payne controls the race, then survives a late charge
Payne started from pole and retained the lead through the first stint. According to Supercars’ official race report, De Pasquale made the first of the leading pit stops on lap 26, but Payne had built enough of a margin to cover the move.
The second cycle tightened the contest. De Pasquale lost time behind Thomas Randle while Payne made his final stop on lap 52. In the closing laps, Payne encountered a group of lapped cars and ran wide at Turn 9. De Pasquale moved within one second with three laps remaining, but Payne kept the Mustang ahead to end a three-month winless stretch.
Murray’s third place was his first Supercars podium and came in only his fourth start for PremiAir, according to the series. Feeney finished fourth, 17.209 seconds behind Payne, while Mostert was fifth. Thomas Randle, Will Brown, Andre Heimgartner, Jayden Ojeda and Kostecki completed the top 10.
Four drivers and four teams advance to Adelaide
Supercars’ official Grand Final announcement confirms that Payne, Kostecki, Mostert and Feeney will contest the championship from November 26-29. For the first time under the Finals format, the four finalists represent four different teams.
Payne left Sandown at the top of the Finals standings with 4,438 points. Kostecki had 4,317, while Mostert and Feeney were level on 4,302. Supercars says the points will be reset for Adelaide, where Payne is scheduled to begin with a 30-point advantage over Kostecki. Mostert will start 54 points behind Payne and Feeney 72 behind.
De Pasquale’s runner-up finish left him fifth in the post-Sandown standings, 17 points below the cut. Brown recovered from 19th on the grid to finish seventh, but that was not enough to advance. Cam Waters finished 15th and was also eliminated.
Kostecki’s Saturday win proved decisive
Kostecki entered Sunday already qualified after winning Saturday’s Race 33. The official Saturday results show the Shell V-Power Racing driver finishing 5.362 seconds ahead of Payne, with Waters third and Mostert fourth.
Sunday was less straightforward for Kostecki. He received a drive-through penalty for turning off his engine while rolling into his grid position, a breach of the start procedure described in Supercars’ race report. He recovered to 10th, but his automatic place earned on Saturday meant the penalty did not remove him from the title field.
What comes next
The Adelaide Grand Final will decide the 2026 Supercars champion over November 26-29. Payne will arrive with momentum from a pole-to-win Sunday, Kostecki with Saturday’s victory, Mostert as the reigning champion, and Feeney as the fourth finalist.
The Sandown result joins a busy international motorsport weekend. Chiefs Review also covered Team Impul’s Super GT victory at Motegi and Lando Norris taking São Paulo Grand Prix pole in wet qualifying.
Featured image: Matt Payne at the 2025 Adelaide Grand Final parade; archive image, not the 2026 Sandown race. Photo by Yu Chu Chin, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. No changes were made.
