Anton De Pasquale has given Chevrolet and Team 18 their second win of the 2026 Supercars season with a convincing victory in the third and final race at Hidden Valley.

After starting from third on the grid, De Pasquale made his first of two pit stops earlier than the other race contenders, undercutting the pole-winning Tickford Ford Mustang of Cam Waters, and even a longer, second pit stop could not prevent De Pasquale from speeding to a winning margin of 1.4298 seconds in a race that finished behind the safety car due to a late problem further back in the field.

Grove Racing's Matt Payne had to twice come from behind to pass Waters on the track, due to a sticking wheel during his second pit stop, and his pursuit of De Pasquale was not aided by instructions from his team to conserve fuel. Payne maintained the gap over the closing laps but even as the leading pair sped away from the opposition, he was never in position to challenge for the win.

“We won it in the pits, which was awesome. The boys stepped up when they had to and the car looked after its tyres,” said De Pasquale after taking his first win since the opening round of the season at Sydney Motorsport Park.

“We are on our own development path and we know where we want to go. You cannot make big gains overnight.

“It looked like Matty [Payne] was really fast and Cam came back to me, and we got them in the stop. And my car was really fast in clean air.”

Payne had to be content with second place and a reduced points lead to series leader Broc Feeney.

“I had a feeling it was going to finish under Safety Car,” he said. “I made a rally good pass in the first stint on Cam, I had my work cut out for me to push right through. I just didn’t quite have the pace. Things were just a little bit out of our control.”

Anton de Pasquale picked up his second win of the season in Darwin

Third place went to Waters. His Mustang did not quite have the speed of the leading pair, and by the of the 70 laps his mirrors were filled by the Triple 8 Ford of Will Brown, who was very solid in the middle of the race. His effort was backed up by teammate Broc Feeney, who conceded the place to Brown with 12 laps remaining, after Brown the last of the top 10 drivers to make his second stop.

“It’s a bit a tough year but it’s good to have a consistent weekend,” said Waters.

“I had a great start and I was trying to have a good race. But we didn’t quite have the tyre life today. We’ll take that into the next round.”

The Triple 8 duo finished ahead of Kai Allen. Saturday’s race winner started outside the top 10, but his Grove Racing Mustang gained an impressive six places during the race, on his way to sixth.

Chaz Mostert was having a better day than on Saturday, making the Top 10 Shoot Out and running seventh until his Walkinshaw TWG Toyota GR Supra suffered a blown engine with six laps to go. Little comfort for the team would be that Ryan Wood moved up a position to seventh with Mostert’s demise.

There were two drivers that did not compete in the race. The effects of Brodie Kostecki’s ongoing virus, plus an apparent back injury, saw him rule himself out on Sunday morning. Endurance co-driver Todd Hazelwood, who was present to drive in the Trans Am races, stepped into the Dick Johnson Racing Ford and finished a solid 12th in his mate’s absence.

Thomas Randle drove his Tickford Racing Ford in Qualifying but the after-effects of his failed cool suit in Saturday’s race led him to withdraw. Mark Winterbottom, who an hour before the race, as a TV commentator, was speculating who might be on standby, was suddenly activated to race for the team for which he is due to drive in this season’s endurance races.

The results mean that Feeney leaves Darwin on 1390 points, just 15 clear of Payne. Kostecki’s absence that Waters’s form have moved the Tickford man to third overall, ahead of Allen. De Pasquale moves to sixth overall.

Supercars Darwin: 20-year-old Kai Allen wins again

Supercars Darwin: Cam Waters takes first win of 2026 as Ford sweeps top five

The Supercars teams will continue their traditional winter northern swing on the streets of Townsville in two weeks’ time.

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Kai Allen has taken Grove Racing and Ford to the top step of the podium at the second Supercars race at Hidden Valley in Darwin.

The rising star of Supercars celebrated his 21st birthday a week early when he rose from sixth on the opening lap to pick off the cars in front, including team-mate Matt Payne. Allen managed to track down early leader Cam Waters, who started from pole position in the Tickford Ford Mustang. But Waters, the winner of Friday’s race, had no answer to the leader’s pace, running wide on lap 41, and came home in second place.

By the chequered flag Allen had run away, pulling a lead of nearly nine seconds over the final 20 laps of the 70-lap journey. It was his fourth podium finish in five races at the Hidden Valley circuit.

Supercars Darwin: Cam Waters takes first win of 2026 as Ford sweeps top five

“I knew I had something early in the race,” said Allen, who gained early track position with a short fill in his opening pitstop.

“Once I got out on those fresh tyres and got past Cam, I knew we could pull away. It was not easy going from fifth but I managed to do it. I could see Cam moving around on Matty, and the boys made the call and I got past.”

Over the final laps of the race Waters had to fight hard to hold off Brodie Kostecki. The Dick Johnson Racing Ford driver was feeling the effects of flu for the second day in a row, but his cause was aided somewhat when Payne had to serve a five-second time penalty at his first of two pitstops, after behind adjudged to have crept at the start.

Waters admitted that his Mustang did not have the speed to take a second win on the weekend.

“I was happy to get another podium, I am happy to maximise what we had then, we still got a trophy when the car was not perfect,” he said. “We have taken a big step forward this weekend.”

Kostecki was quite physically distressed after the race, with much hotter conditions than experienced on Friday amplifying the effects of his ongoing ’flu and a failing drinks bottle making things even worse. While he was being treated by medical staff his trophy was accepted on the podium by race engineer George Commins.

Completing the Ford sweep of the top five placings was the Triple Eight Mustang of Will Brown. He had to put on an early charge after starting outside the top 10, while team-mate Broc Feeney was better than he had been on Friday, starting sixth and gaining a position on the opening lap. But the blue cars were again not quite as sharp as their Ford rivals and he lost a place to Chaz Mostert with a dozen laps to go.

Mostert put in the drive of the race. After running with the leaders he was unlucky to find some power steering fluid (ironically dropped by Walkinshaw TWG team-mate Ryan Wood) and run off the track, dropping from sixth to 14th. From that point he was on a mission, gaining positions lap by lap and eventually restoring that sixth place.

Anton De Pasquale was the best of the Chevrolet Camaro drivers in eighth place. The Team 18 driver started a lowly 20th on the grid after finding that he had a lack of grip in Qualifying, but a dogged drive lifted him right onto Feeney’s rear bumper at the end of a tough race.

Feeney’s points lead has been further reduced, dropping from 59 pre-race to 36, with Payne second.

The Supercars and drivers will return to the track on Sunday for another 70-lap, 200km race.

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Cam Waters and Tickford Racing have put a tough mid-season behind them with a first win of the season in the first of three Supercars races at Hidden Valley in Australia’s Northern Territory.

In the first-ever Friday race at the Darwin circuit, Waters and his Ford Mustang came from fourth on the grid and pitted later than early leader Brodie Kostecki (Dick Johnson Racing Ford) to take the lead at Turn 1 and come home to a narrow victory, in a race that featured a one-lap dash to the flag after a late safety car.

“A long hard slog, for sure,” said Waters, whose victory ended a 47-race winless streak. “We haven’t had the best start to the year but we have been there or thereabouts.

“I thought he [Kostecki] was going to make it a little bit harder for me but I had a fresher tyre. Amazing to get a win, it has been a hard year."

In unseasonably cool conditions (it even rained lightly during the second part of Qualifying), Kostecki took the early lead from the Team 18 Chevrolet Camaro of Anton De Pasquale – the pair shared the front row for the fifth time of their careers. Both lost positions in the race, with the Grove Racing Fords of Kai Allen and Matt Payne pushing the 2023 champion back to fourth in one fell swoop on lap 32.

Allen, who scored a podium at the track a year ago, said: “I love this track.

“I need to get the qualifying a little better but the race car was really good. I got to the back of Brodie’s rear bar and we tried to get a double podium, and it worked out.”

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Payne rued the loss a couple of seconds when a rear wheel stuck during his pitstop.

“Kai was making the moves for us,” he said. “I thought the car was pretty speedy but we just had a hiccup during the pitstop.”

Earlier, Kostecki shrugged off a problem with his engine’s throttle body, which stranded him in the garage for the opening 15 minutes of the sole Practice session, and a bout of flu, to take pole position. But his car lacked the race pace of the other Fords and he had to settle for fourth place at the finish.

Will Brown took fifth for Triple Eight Racing, thereby giving Ford a sweep of the top five places at a track that has previously featured only Chevrolet wins during the Gen3 era.

The best of the rest was De Pasquale, just ahead of the Toyota GR Supra of Walkinshaw TWG’s Chaz Mostert. The defending Supercars Champion just missed making the Qualifying cut to the top 10 session and started 11th, before passing team-mate Ryan Wood on his way to seventh.

Points leader Broc Feeney, the winner of six of the eight previous Gen3 races at the circuit, started from 13th on the grid after a tricky qualifying session. He did his cause no good at all by running off immediately when rejoining after his pitstop and complained of a lack of straightline speed during the race, finishing 14th. As a result, the 90-point lead he brought to the event has been reduced to 59.

The Supercars teams and drivers will return to action on Saturday and Sunday with two 70-lap, 200km races.

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