The 'reset' that turned Payne's season around
Matt Payne hit reset after Darwin disaster
Payne now fifth, having left Darwin ninth in the points
Kiwi hopeful of year-on-year Tassie turnaround
Matt Payne says he reset the championship in his mind after Darwin, paving the way for a jump in form for the Penrite Racing driver.
Payne left Hidden Valley ninth in the championship after battling to 15th and 20th in the two races, undoing what had been a solid start to the year.
The New Zealander had two poles and two podiums to his name in the first four rounds, but despite the one-lap pace, didn’t have enough to fight with in the races.
Payne powered back to form with a stunning victory in Townsville, before backing it up with another strategic masterstroke to claim second in Sydney.
On either side of the podium visits were sterling drives to fourth, helping Payne to 528 points in two rounds. Only Chaz Mostert, with 567, scored more.
Speaking to Supercars.com, Payne revealed he hit the reset button after Darwin, and knows there’s plenty more to play for in coming rounds given his crew have found a sweet spot with the tyres.
"I've sort of taken a bit of an approach of sort of resetting the championship after Darwin and kind of going from there,” the 21-year-old explained.
"I think we've done a good job in the last couple of rounds and it's really important for us to capitalise for the end of the year. There's really good points coming up in the enduros, so that's where we're going to make or break our season.
“Tassie is going to be tough for a lot of people with it being on the Super Soft tyre, it's an unconventional track. So, points could be could be getting thrown around everywhere.
“The enduro season is where we're gonna make big points, especially doing it with Garth [Tander], who is awesome to work with.”
A sign of Penrite Racing’s year-on-year growth was Payne’s performance in Sydney, where he arguably had the second fastest car behind Ford rival Mostert.
It was a stark contrast to Sydney last year, where Payne qualified on the back row of the grid twice. Having finished 15th, 15th and 21st in Tasmania last year, Payne is hoping for another big turnaround come this weekend’s action at Symmons Plains Raceway.
"Sydney was probably our worst round last year, in both qualifyings we were on the back row,” Payne said.
"Tassie's really a track and a place that I really want to be strong at, I want to look forward to going there; I always look forward to racing there, but the places where you don't go the best, you don't want to go.
“Hopefully this weekend we can sort of turn that around like we did at Sydney and have a couple strong results. It's a very simple track but it can become complicated quite quickly. A lot of it is trying to get it turned around the hairpin, you can make up a lot of time there and also down the straight.
“From sort of where our cars have been, it's really hard to tell if we're gonna be competitive or not, but temperature also is gonna be a big thing, trying to get the tyres up for lap one or two.”
Payne is fifth in the championship, just 37 points behind fourth placed Cam Waters, and 423 points behind championship leader Will Brown. Tickets for Tasmania are on sale now.
