The maiden Supercars season to feature a Finals system over-delivered on one thing it was expected to provide: a lot of talking points.
Even as Chaz Mostert and the Walkinshaw Andretti United Ford team celebrated their drivers’ title victory in Adelaide, debate was raging about whether it was a fair result from a flawed system.
How Mostert and WAU won revealed something that few might have thought of at the start of the 2025 campaign, but what was hiding in plain sight all the time - winning races in the ‘regular’ season is all well and good, yet it means little once the going gets serious.
Mostert and the team came into the year with what might be described as a cunning plan “There were two parts that made our year,” a happy Mostert said in Adelaide.
“[At] round 1, we said, ‘right, we want to be there in the Finals, we want to try to win the championship. This is how we are going to approach the year; we are going to try things that we necessarily don’t’…”
Team co-owner Ryan Walkinshaw explained the concept further: “We spent all season focusing, just not trying to be competing in the finals, sacrificing so many rounds just so he could try and learn what we need to learn for these last three rounds.”
At the other end of the scale, Triple Eight played a more conventional innings. It took a few rounds for Broc Feeney to find his form, but once he did he went on a winning spree. In a 15-race run that encompassed rounds four and eight (the end of the Sprint Series), Feeney took 11 victories.
On the other hand, by that point of the season, Mostert had won just once. Feeney had a whole round's points in hand over his closest pursuer, while Grove Racing’s Matt Payne and Mostert were two full rounds behind.
That, and the engine failure that ended Mostert’s chances of winning the Bathurst 1000, would have doomed him to a top-six championship result at best in any other season. But the inconsistent form that Mostert, WAU team-mate Ryan Wood and the team displayed actually had a purpose; the squad was trying out new set-ups and, so long as its drivers remained in contention to make the top 10 Finalists, it was happy to keep doing so.
“Probably the way we ‘tested’ during race weekends was probably the best judge of fact,” said Mostert. “The 24 other competitors [are] here and there is no hiding if the car is good or bad.
“Once we got to the Finals series you guys [the media] didn’t talk about us once, the #25 car, and you shouldn't [have], because we were so up and down. One weekend we were on the podium, one weekend we were not.
“That was hard work. A lot of soul-searching and a lot of doubt as well, doing that. But I must say, these last three rounds, I don’t know what our average finishing place was but surely it had to be, top three, top four. Even when I barried it up in qualifying, in 12th, the car was still awesome, it was unbelievable.”
That was when Mostert showed his best form.
He reeled off three straight wins, two on the streets of the Gold Coast and another at Sandown, followed by a fourth place. Three second places, one from the aforementioned 12th on the grid, delivered Mostert his first title with room to spare.
Feeney maintained his points lead, but had his title hopes evaporate when his Chevrolet Camaro had an engine misfire in the final two races of the year in Adelaide. While he was dealing with the disappointment of losing a title he would have won in a canter in any other year, the next day he called Mostert “a deserving champion”.
“The run that he went on in this Finals Series is something that he should be truly proud of,” Feeney said. “He's a great role model for the sport. He’s fantastic with the fans, with all the drivers. He’s always been great to me. I really want to congratulate him on what is a fantastic championship.”
There will be a lot of fans criticising the new Finals system. Few would argue that Mostert does not deserve a title, but the circumstances under which it played out will be talked about for some time…
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