JR Trophy leader Payne not feeling the pressure
By Thomas Miles
Date posted: 13 April 2025
Matt Payne lived a childhood dream of winning a Supercars race on home soil and today he could achieve another one by lifting the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy.
After winning the opening race of the Taupo in dominant style and backing that up with a fighting fourth, Payne heads into Sunday as the overwhelming leader in the race for the coveted trophy that salutes a Kiwi favourite who is gone too soon.
With only the 200km race to go, the Grove Racing driver enjoys a handy buffer at the top of the round standings.
With 147 points next to his name, Payne is 33 points clear of Chaz Mostert, who heads a tight race for the minors with Will Davison, Ryan Wood, Will Brown, Cameron Waters and Brodie Kostecki tightly bunched.
Despite the pressure of being a home hero at the age of 22, Payne is not feeling the pressure.
“It is huge. I talked about it before the weekend thinking it would be the biggest achievement in my career probably,” Payne told Auto Action’s Andrew Clarke about the JR Trophy.
“It is even more important being a Kiwi in my own country.
“I doubt I will think about it and we will just see what happens at the end of the day.
“It is on the cards, but we will just focus on what we need to do and hopefully it comes our way.
“People say there is more pressure in front of the home crowd but to me it is just great Supercars are racing here again and it is a privilege to put on a race in front of my home fans and showcase what I can do.”
Payne started the day by producing some lifelong memories, taking pole position and converting it to become the fifth Kiwi to win a Supercars Championship race on home soil.
Whilst it appeared to be a clam drive from the outside, there were a few edgy moments for the Grove Racing driver, not least when he initially missed the chance to pit under the Safety Car and had to box a lap later than the rest.
“Seeing all the fans clapping and cheering was really special,” Payne recalled of the celebrations.
“It is something as a driver you can only really experience when situations like that happen and it is unbelievable. It lifts me up.
“We support other Kiwis like family so it is what we do.
“Starting on pole I knew Brodie (Kostecki) was going to be aggressive and saw him brake pretty late, so I knew I had to run him up high.
“The rest of the race was good. I knew I had strong car speed from the start and thought Cam was strong and thought he would put a move on, but we managed to pull away.”
“(At the SafetyCar) I just passed the pit lane when we slowed to 80 and got told to stay out.
“We thought that is what we needed to do and is just how it happened.
“The Safety Car picked me up but he stayed at 80 the whole lap so I did not lose anytime.
“If the Safety Car went down to 60 to bunch the field up I would have been way down, so I was lucky. In my head I thought we had screwed up!”
Despite staying at the front of the field in the second race, Payne admitted it is “a bit gutting” knowing another podium could have been possible having received a 5s penalty for a jump start.
“I just had the clutch out too far and could feel it dying and needed to take it out which in turn made me jump,” he said.
“I thought there was a chance to stay behind the line but it did.
“As soon as we got the penalty it was about managing the gap. We knew our car was good enough to stay with those guys.
“With 5-6 laps to go we really put the hammer down and used everything to get there and managed to get Broc in the process. It was as good as we could have got.
“We could have been second if we played our cars right though and a bit gutting.
“The positive thing is we know we have a very fast car in qualifying and race.
“We can improve it a bit more and tick the boxes we need to and see where we come out.”
Image: Mark Horsburgh
Taupo Super440
Practice 1 – 1: A. Heimgartner 1:26.8830 2: Anton De Pasquale +0.0258 3: Matt Payne +0.0830
Practice 2 – 1: Ryan Wood 1:25.9778; 2: Brodie Kostecki +0.0435; 3: Thomas Randle +0.0838
Race 8 Qualifying – 1 Matt Payne 1:25.7006; 2 Brodie Kostecki +0.0705; 3 Cameron Waters +0.1646
Race 9 Qualifying: 1 Brodie Kostecki 1:26.3482; 2 Chaz Mostert +0.0712; 3 Broc Feeney +0.1939
Race 8 (37 laps) 1 Matt Payne 2 Cameron Waters 3 Ryan Wood
Race 9 (37 laps) 1 Chaz Mostert WAU 37 56.14; 2 Will Davison DJR 37 +6.4763; 3 Brodie Kostecki DJR 37 +9.1911
Sun 8.35-9.05: Supercars Race 10 Qualifying
Sun 10.50-11.35: Supercars Race 10 Top 10 Shootout
Sun 13.05: Supercars Race 10 (61 laps)
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