Payne 'doesn't feel any worse' about Adelaide win despite Sandown disaster

Make no mistake, it has been a breakout campaign for Matt Payne in 2025, capped off by another superb win on the streets of Adelaide. But in his own words, 'it just wasn't his year.'

Despite winning the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy, Repco Bathurst 1000, and Ryco Enduro Cup all in one season, his title hopes were dashed after a moment of madness with Cam Waters in the final leg of the Penrite Oil Sandown 500.

Having been running in a position of relative safety, the steering damage inflicted to Payne's #19 Mustang ultimately saw teammate Kai Allen promoted into the bp Adelaide Grand Final field of four.

The incident was particularly costly when you factor in Penrite Racing's form at Adelaide, with Payne claiming his first career win at the venue in 2023 with a hugely impressive drive.

On Sunday, it was once again a drive that invoked memories of two years ago, as Payne got the jump on pole-sitter Broc Feeney from the front row and never once looked like being headed.

When asked if he wished he had done things differently at either the Gold Coast or Sandown after winning on the streets of Adelaide, the Kiwi admitted that he would've, but stopped short of saying it put a dampener on the day.

"Of course, there's always going to be a part of me that wished I did something different," said Payne on Sunday.

"But when you're in the moment and you're racing, it's all you're doing, and like Jamie said, we sign up for this, it's on the waiver before you join the sport.

"You're going to have bad days, and you're going to have really good ones, and I feel like even this year we've had some really, really ripper days, and we haven't had too many bad ones.

"Unfortunately on Sunday at Sandown, it cost us our year and our shot at the championship, but it doesn't make me feel any worse about what happened today.

"I think we showed we have really good speed and can fight for the championship, it just wasn't our year."

Had Payne not collided with Waters, he would have entered Adelaide ranked fourth. Had the results played out as they did on the weekend, he still would have fallen 66 points short of Mostert, who out-scored Payne by 36 points across the three Adelaide races.

With Allen finishing a sensational fourth in his rookie campaign, the first rookie to finish inside the top four since Greg Murphy in 1997, Penrite Racing were only beaten by the dominant Red Bull Ampol Racing in the teams' championship.

However, next year will bring change to the squad, with Team Principal David Cauchi moving on to pastures new, and Allen's engineer Alistair McVean moving to a Head of Performance role as the South Aussie welcomes ex-Ferrari engineer Riccardo Corte into his corner.

When asked if his win was a launchpad into a 2026 season that would be stronger than his five-win season this year, Payne vowed that no stone would be left unturned.

"We're going to work really hard towards next year to make sure that we iron out some of the stuff we had this year," Payne said.

"Like Brenton said, we've built really well this year and made a huge step forward in having two fast cars with Kai.

"We're going to work really hard, and try to come back even stronger next year."