Adelaide 500: Matt Payne wins final race of 2023, Brodie Kostecki celebrates title

After a dominant year by their opposition, Ford have claimed the final race of the Supercars season through Matt Payne, but the party is just getting started for new champion Brodie Kostecki.

Grove Racing rookie Matt Payne capped off Ford’s strong finish to the Supercars season to win the final race of the year in Adelaide as new champion Brodie Kostecki kicked off his title-winning celebrations and disaster hit Shane van Gisbergen’s farewell.

After a season of parity debate for the Blue Oval, the 21-year-old Kiwi claimed his maiden Supercars victory to complete back-to-back Ford wins at the Adelaide 500 and give the Mustang its fourth in succession to close the 2023 championship.

Payne led home a double-podium for Grove Racing with his departing teammate David Reynolds, who is joining Team 18 next year, grabbing third to take his second top-three finish of the weekend and fourth consecutive podium.

Triple Eight young gun Broc Feeney split the Grove pair in second position, but there was to be no fairytale finish for his NASCAR-bound teammate van Gisbergen.

In his farewell to the series, which he departs as a three-time champion, van Gisbergen finished the race in the garage after reporting an issue with wobbling under brakes that the team was unable to resolve.

🇳🇿 New Zealand's 21-year-old rookie is a Supercars race winner! 🏆 Congratulations Matt Payne!#7Motorsport#RepcoSCpic.twitter.com/4yGJtKYoDi

— 7Sport (@7Sport) November 26, 2023

The day after securing his maiden Supercars crown, Kostecki finished the final race of the season in eighth position as Erebus Motorsport sealed the championship double to win the teams’ title ahead of rivals Triple Eight.

While his celebrations were tempered on Saturday with one race still to go, Kostecki didn’t hold back after the season-ending battle when he was officially crowned champion as he completed epic burnouts around the championship trophy on the main straight.

But it was Payne who announced himself as a rising Supercars star with a flawless drive on the streets of Adelaide in the 250 km race to claim a breakthrough career win.

He finished the 78-lap race by a comfortable margin of eight and a half seconds from Feeney, who won the same race last year.

Payne said he had believed all season he was capable of breaking through for a win in his rookie year.

“It’s so good, I’ve got now words. It’s so awesome,” Payne said.

“I’ve got to thank the whole Penrite Racing crew, they’ve tried so hard this season. We have all been trying, we have worked so hard to get to this point and I finally think we have got some really good pace in both these cars.

“It’s been so good. Special thanks to Groves, they believed in me when they first put me in Super2 and it has definitely paid off now.

“We had a rookie test day just before the Bend when we found a few things …. and it was probably around then when I thought I could challenge the front pack, but I’ve believed all season that I could.

“It was a long, long last 10 laps.”

The celebration begins for Brodie Kosteck. (Photo by Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images)

Payne’s win followed Cam Waters’ victory in Saturday’s opening 250km race as the Tickford Racing star backed up with a fourth-place finish on Sunday.

Van Gisbergen’s bid to leave the series on a high note didn’t start well after he missed out on a place in the top-10 shootout and started the race from 15th place on the grid.

He had produced some of his trademark overtaking to work his way through the field early in the race, but hit trouble on lap 49 when he dived in for an unannounced visit to the garage the same time Feeney was due in for a scheduled stop.

Van Gisbergen moved over at the last minute at the entrance to pit lane to give Feeney the pit position before the crew assessed the issue the Kiwi had reported.

The three-time Bathurst 1000 champion returned to the track, but was back in the garage not long after with the issue still unresolved.

But van Gisbergen still finished second in the championship behind Kostecki with Feeney in third place, while Chaz Mostert was the best-placed Ford driver in fourth.

“Congratulations to Broc and the team on a great result today. It would have been good to have joined him on the podium as I thought our car was going good, but unfortunately we have some sort of issue that we couldn’t fix,” van Gisbergen said.

“Congratulations again to Brodie as well. He’s been the fastest guy all year and the team made no mistakes, so they deserved to have both championships.

“We tried our hardest but we couldn’t get it done. I’ve had an amazing time with the team at Triple Eight so thanks to them for a great few years - I had a blast and I’m sure I’ll be back one day.”

No sooner had he accepted his trophy, Kostecki was already thinking about his title defence next year, but was first looking forward to getting his championship celebrations underway.

“I’m stoked to get the teams’ championship and the drivers’ championship, it’s been all the hard work that has gone in all season and we’re truly humbled to be here,” said Kostecki, who earlier claimed his 10th pole position of the year.

“I’m very much looking forward to defending that title next year. We’ll have a little bit of a break in the off-season and come back bigger and stronger.

“We’ll definitely enjoy this tonight.”

The Erebus star finished the season with more than twice as many poles as the next best driver - his teammate Will Brown, who had four for the year.

WATCH: SCARY HIGH-SPEED CRASH ROCKS SUPERCARS FINALE

Matt Stone Racing rookie Cameron Hill became a casualty of Adelaide’s infamous turn eight after smashing his car into the concrete in a scary high-speed crash in qualifying.

In a forceful shunt, Hill slammed his Camaro into the outside concrete wall after turning the 210km corner before his car ricocheted across the track into the opposite wall.

Hill was able to climb out of the car unhurt after the smash, but the damage to his car has left MSR with a big repair job to get fixed in time for Sunday’s final race of the season.

Hill’s crash forced the qualifying session to be red flagged while his car was retrieved and transported back to the garage.

“It certainly looks like it has sustained a fair bit of damage there,” team owner Matt Stone said.

“We’ll wait until we get the car back and we’ll have a red-hot crack at seeing if we can get it tuned up for this afternoon.”

Not the birthday present Cam Hill was after 😬

Catch every moment of the finale in Race HQ: https://t.co/qyu6AAgclo…… #RepcoSC#Supercarspic.twitter.com/FRzIHrchTG

— Supercars (@supercars) November 25, 2023

After the session resumed Grove Racing rookie Matt Payne secured provisional pole for the final 250km race in Adelaide, while Shane van Gisbergen missed out on a spot in the top-10 shootout and will start from 15th on the grid for his farewell race in Supercars before he heads to NASCAR.

Saturday’s race winner Cam Waters, David Reynolds, Broc Feeney and Thomas Randle rounded out the top five in qualifying.

New Supercars champion Brodie Kostecki also booked his ticket to the top-10 shootout, finishing seventh in qualifying.

Cameron Hill's high speed crash.

WHINCUP, TRIPLE EIGHT VOW TO FAREWELL SvG IN GRAND FASHION

Triple Eight has vowed to send off Shane van Gisbergen on a high in his Supercars farewell in Adelaide on Sunday after the triple series champion’s “deflating” exit from the championship battle.

Van Gisbergen’s bid to chase down series leader Brodie Kostecki in his pursuit of a fourth Supercars crown before his move to race NASCAR was over before a lap was even completed on Saturday.

The three-time Bathurst 1000 champion was taken out of the race after crashing into Will Brown’s damaged Camaro after it had slammed into the wall at turn four on the opening lap.

The incident ended any hopes van Gisbergen had of reeling in Kostecki’s championship lead as the Erebus driver clinched his first title.

Van Gisbergen admitted it had been a deflating way to end the title battle, but was quick to congratulate his Erebus rivals.

Shane van Gisbergen’s hopes of a championship were ruined on Saturday. (Photo by Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images)

“Firstly, congratulations to Brodie and the entire Erebus team for their championship win,” van Gisbergen said.

“It’s pretty deflating the way today’s race ended, but that’s the way these things happen sometimes.

“The car isn’t looking too bad and I have full confidence that the crew can get it back to one hundred per cent tomorrow – it would be nice to finish off the year with a good result.

“Broc did a fantastic job and managed to close the gap in the teams’ championship, so that’s our full focus tomorrow.”

Van Gisbergen has one last race left as a full-time Supercars driver on Sunday before he makes the move to the United States to race in NASCAR from 2024 after signing with Trackhouse Racing.

Triple Eight team principal Jamie Whincup said the squad was focused on sending off van Gisbergen in style.

“He is a three-time champion, he has done a lot for the sport,” Whincup said.

“We’re going to miss him and hopefully for his sake, he can finish on a high and have the right send-off he deserves for what has been a fantastic Supercars career.

“Everyone just goes out there now and has a fair rip and hopefully we are competitive enough to take the fight to the last day.”

The three-time champion will head to NASCAR after this season. (Photo by Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images)

Van Gisbergen claimed back-to-back Supercars championships in 2021 and 2022, adding to his 2016 win, and Whincup conceded missing out on this year’s title was a “hollow” feeling.

“It’s a little bit hollow, I feel defeated, unfortunately but that’s the way it is,” Whincup said.

“If we didn’t care then we shouldn’t be doing it. I feel defeated. But congratulations to Betty (Klimenko), Barry (Ryan), Brodie, they did a great job. They had the best strategy for the year and they clearly had the fastest car.

“They deserve the No.1. We have still got the teams’ championship up for grabs and we are going to need a bit of luck tomorrow, but we put today behind us and just concentrate on the teams’ championship for tomorrow and see if we can at least get that.”

Whincup said Triple Eight would resume hungrier next year to try and reclaim the championship when Brown joins young gun Broc Feeney in the driver line-up.

“We present every year as championship contenders,” Whincup said.

“Sometimes we win, sometimes we don’t, but we’re always there, we’re always bringing the title to the last round. There are only a couple of times that I can think of where we haven’t been a title contender coming into the last round.

“I’m proud of the job that everybody has done …. it wasn’t our year this year, but we’re P2, nothing to be ashamed of.

“But, of course, we want to get the No. 1 on the door every opportunity that we can and we’ll make sure we put our head down next year.”

Originally published as Adelaide 500: Matt Payne wins final race of 2023, Brodie Kostecki celebrates title