Brock Feeney heads to Tasmania next weekend as the new outright leader of the 2026 Repco Supercars Championship, with the Triple Eight driver dethroning Brodie Kostecki at the top of the standings ahead of the Tasmania Super440 weekend at Symmons Plains.
Round five of the season runs from Friday 22 to Sunday 24 May at the 2.4 km anticlockwise circuit south of Launceston — a venue affectionately nicknamed "the hockey stick" by Supercars insiders thanks to its two long straights, deceptive hairpin and tight complex through turns six to two.
The circuit's odd shape and sub-55-second lap make it one of the most overtaking-friendly stops on the Supercars calendar. Hotspots cluster at the turn one-two complex, the turn four hairpin and the long run into turn six.
The Super440 weekend hosts championship races 14, 15 and 16, run to the familiar two-by-25-minute practice format, single qualifying sessions for the first two races, a top-10 shootout for race 16, and three races split into two 120 km Saturday sprints and a 200 km Sunday feature. Race 15 will mark the 100th championship round held at Symmons Plains since the venue first joined the supercar schedule in 1969.
Last year's Tasmania round set the template for this weekend. Thomas Randle took pole for race one before Broc Feeney charged through for the win. Feeney then made it look simple in race two with a lights-to-flag victory from pole. The Sunday feature became one of the most dramatic finishes of the 2025 season, with Will Brown taking pole in the shootout before James Golding stole the lead at turn one.
Matt Payne ultimately stole the headlines after a perfectly timed safety-car cycle — caused by Bryce Fullwood turning Feeney into the wall on lap 28 — left the Penrite driver running long with both mandatory stops banked. Payne held off a hard-charging Feeney in the closing laps despite tyres he described as "completely gone" and "just hanging on", crossing the line 0.055 seconds clear.
That margin, the closest Supercars finish at Symmons Plains in five years, is what Payne is being asked to defend this weekend, and his run to fourth in the championship is built on similar tyre-management masterclasses. The 23-year-old's car preparation will be doubly critical given that the Penrite Mustangs were reportedly out of sorts on the New Zealand double-header.
The most notable mover in the standings is Kai Allen, whose maiden Supercars win at Christchurch has lifted him six positions to fifth in the championship. Both Ryan Wood and Anton De Pasquale have dropped one place but remain the highest-placed cars for their respective brands. James Golding has moved up to eighth at BRT, leapfrogging Will Brown, who slips to ninth.
The driver at risk for next year's top-10 finals cutoff is Jack Le Brocq, the only driver inside the top eleven without a podium so far in 2026. Chaz Mostert, the unlucky tenth man missing the cutoff at the moment, sits just outside the top 10 — a reminder of how thin the margins have become with Walkinshaw Andretti United fighting to convert pace into points.
In the team standings, Triple Eight Racing has taken the championship lead away from Grove, with WAU TWWG sitting third. The manufacturer standings continue to read as a Ford whitewash: 11 wins across the Mustangs versus zero for Chevrolet, with the Blue Oval more than 3,000 points clear in the manufacturer race.
Symmons Plains traditionally rewards setup compromise between the short technical complex and the long straights, and reliable tyre-management — making it the perfect circuit for a championship lead change one way or the other. With Triple Eight finally edging in front and Feeney's confidence rising, Tasmania has the makings of one of the defining rounds of the 2026 season.
