Payne holds off De Pasquale to win Sandown Race 34

Matt Payne held his nerve when it mattered most. A day after Brodie Kostecki won the Penrite Oil Sandown 500 opener, Payne answered with victory in Race 34 on Sunday, beating Anton De Pasquale by just 0.7382 seconds after 79 laps at Sandown and booking his place in the four-driver showdown for the 2026 Repco Supercars Championship.

The win completed a near-perfect weekend for the Grove Racing driver. Payne took pole position in the Boost Mobile Top 10 Shootout on both Saturday and Sunday, finished second to Kostecki in Saturday's Race 33, and then went one better when the championship was on the line. It was his first victory since August's Bosch Power Tools Perth Super 440, and it arrived at exactly the moment his title hopes demanded it.

Starting from pole alongside De Pasquale, Payne used the inside line to keep the lead into the opening corner and never gave it up. He built a cushion of around three seconds during the opening stint. De Pasquale lost time behind Thomas Randle as the Tickford driver rejoined on cold tyres, and once the final stops were complete Payne's advantage stood at approximately two and a half seconds.

The closing laps were anything but comfortable. As the leaders worked through lapped traffic, De Pasquale closed to within a second, and Payne admitted afterwards that his car had little left to give. "Oh man, that was so stressful," Payne said. "We didn't have much left at the end but managed to just hold on by the skin of my teeth. Pretty stoked."

De Pasquale's heartbreak as Murray stars

For De Pasquale, second place was the cruellest possible result. The Team 18 driver started the day knowing that only victory would carry him into the bp Adelaide Grand Final, and he finished exactly where he started, beaten by less than a second. "I gave it everything," De Pasquale said. "I was trying to hunt him down. I thought I got a good start, he just got a little bit better one."

The mathematics of the day made his task harder as the race unfolded. Had every driver finished where he started, De Pasquale would have advanced at Chaz Mostert's expense. But Mostert charged up the order from 11th on the grid, passing Randle late in the race to take fifth, and that left De Pasquale with no route to Adelaide except the win he could not quite reach.

Behind the leading pair, Cooper Murray delivered the story of the day for the midfield. The Melbourne driver finished third, 7.3303 seconds behind Payne, to claim his first career Supercars podium in only his second event with PremiAir Racing. Murray had qualified third after a strong showing in the Top 10 Shootout, and he held his position through the closing stages as his team watched nervously from the garage.

Broc Feeney finished fourth in the Red Bull Ampol Racing Ford, and Mostert's fifth place in the Mobil1 Optus Racing Toyota was enough to secure the final spot in the championship decider. Randle took sixth, Will Brown climbed from 19th on the grid to seventh, and Andre Heimgartner and Ojeda completed the top 10 in eighth and ninth.

Kostecki recovers to lock in his seed

Kostecki had already guaranteed his place in the Grand Final by winning Race 33 on Saturday, but his Sunday was far from straightforward. The Shell V-Power Racing Team driver was handed a drive-through penalty for a start procedure breach after switching off his engine before reaching his grid position, and he served it on lap 11, dropping from fourth to 23rd. He fought back through the field to finish 10th, a recovery that ensured he will be the second seed for Adelaide.

Brown and Waters joined De Pasquale in being eliminated from title contention, cutting the field of seven finalists down to four.

Saturday belonged to Kostecki; Sunday belonged to Payne.

Four drivers, one title in Adelaide

Payne, Kostecki, Feeney and Mostert now head to Adelaide for the bp Adelaide Grand Final on November 26-29, where one of them will be crowned the 2026 Supercars champion. Payne leads the finals standings with 4438 points, with Kostecki 121 points behind him and Feeney and Mostert both 136 points adrift of the leader.

Payne will arrive as the top seed, and he will do so with momentum. Two poles, a second place and a win in the space of two days at Sandown is the kind of weekend that changes a championship, and the New Zealander earned it the hard way, defending against a rival who had everything to gain and nothing to lose.

De Pasquale, meanwhile, is left to reflect on a spring of near misses. He pushed the race winner all the way to the flag, but in a finals format that rewards only the victor in his position, pushing was not enough. His elimination, alongside those of Brown and Waters, underlines how unforgiving the closing stages of this championship have become.

For Murray and PremiAir Racing, Sandown offered a different kind of reward: proof that a new partnership can deliver a podium within two weekends. For the four survivors, the reward is simpler and far bigger. Adelaide awaits, and the title is still anyone's to win.