Broc Feeney left Tasmania with the Supercars Championship lead, winning outright for the first time this season and stretching his advantage to 90 points after the Tasmania Super 440. The result came at the end of round five of nine in the Sprint Cup, with the 2026 season now just past the halfway mark in its first 28-race phase.
Feeney’s weekend mattered because a sprint victory is worth 80 points, and he is now the driver the rest of the field is chasing. Matt Payne stayed second in the standings but was carrying an injury from a recent bike crash and lost 44 points across the weekend, leaving him needing a 23-point swing per weekend to move ahead of Feeney. In the teams championship, Triple Eight also held a 68-point lead.
The 2026 campaign is the second year of Supercars' finals era, with drivers fighting for the Sprint Cup through the first nine rounds and the Enduro Cup at The Bend and Bathurst before the field is cut down to the top 10. All but those 10 are eliminated from championship contention before the finals phase, and the points gaps are reset before the title fight shifts to Adelaide week by week. By the time Tasmania ended, 16 races of the 28-race opening phase had been completed, leaving the series with little margin for error before the reset.
That is why Tasmania carried more weight than a routine round result. Feeney had already taken the view that the season effectively begins after the cars return from New Zealand, and he proved that point last year by winning the five rounds between Tasmania and Ipswich. This time, he has separated himself again just as the championship moves toward the stretch that decides who reaches the finals with a chance to fight for the title.
Payne’s challenge is more complicated than the points table alone. He is still in the hunt, but injury has made each weekend harder, and the 44-point drop in Tasmania showed how quickly a title chase can slip when a contender is not at full strength. Feeney, meanwhile, has turned the early phase into a buffer that could matter again once the top 10 are locked in and the standings are reset for Adelaide.
