Perfect Payne toast of Taupo

Matt Payne has become the fifth New Zealander to win a Supercars race on home soil after dominating the opening race of the Taupo Super440.

As plenty unfolded behind him, Payne was never challenged across the 37-lap journey to lead home Cameron Waters by 4s as the Tickford driver retakes the championship lead.

To give the Kiwis more reasons to celebrate, Ryan Wood blazed his way to a maiden career podium with a late move on Anton De Pasquale.

Brodie Kostecki was Payne’s nearest challenger until a Lap 10 Safety Car for a standard Macauley Jones created some chaos in the pit lane and shook up the leaderboard, seeing the DJR driver drop to 12th as many others were impacted.

One beneficiary by staying out an extra lap was De Pasquale, who surged from seventh to third, only for Wood to snare the spot with two laps to go.

Payne scored his third win of his career and followed in the footsteps of Andre Heimgartner, Scott McLaughlin, Shane van Gisbergen and Greg Murphy as Kiwis to win in Aotearoa.

To complete a special race for Grove Racing, rookie Kai Allen impressively flew from 22^nd to seventh in a race where there were many spot fires.

It was a dead even start between the front row and Payne prevailed by placing the car smartly on the inside and forcing Kostecki to concede.

Waters also settled into third as an aggressive move from Mostert to insert himself between Davison and Wood did not pay off as he backed out and fell to seventh.

With Payne leading Kostecki, Waters, Davison and Wood, Le Brocq was the leading Camaro in sixth as it was double-file from position 10 back in the tight first sector.

They kept it clean until Turn 7 where rookie Cooper Murray speared off after assistance from Cam Hill and took a tour of the gravel, falling from 10^th to last, while the MSR driver received a 15s penalty.

Randle made up three spots to insert himself into the top 10, while Allen was the biggest early mover up five spots to 17^th.

It was mostly single file at the front of the field with Payne only pulling half a second on Kostecki, while Wood forced his way to fourth by muscling Davison out of the way in an opportunist move at Turn 4.

Randle tried to do something similar on De Pasquale at the opening corner on Lap 5 and it did not work, but Mostert was actually the big loser.

In the Tickford driver’s attempt to pass the Team 18 Camaro he clipped the rear of Mostert, which was enough to rotate the #25 into the infield Mostert lost 14 positions from seventh to 20^th as a result.

Once again the stewards swiftly handed Randle a 15s penalty as Mostert set about his comeback drive with a willing door to door battle with Golding.

Up front it was not until Lap 6 when Payne was finally able to skip more than a second clear of Kostecki, who had Waters to think about.

Payne’s lead grew to 1.6s before Lap 10 when a stray Jones at Turn 3 brought out the Safety Car.

With all-but four cars firing into the lane, chaos unfolded in the congested pits and DJR was the big loser.

Kostecki got stuck behind the stacking Feeney and fell from second to seventh, while Davison dropped to 16^thand to rub salt into the wounds, Hill kicked a tyre that was lying in the Ford team’s pit bay.

The decision to leave out Payne and De Pasquale out for another lap and avoid the drama paid dividends as the Team 18 driver jumped to third ahead of Le Brocq who also made gains.

With the leader staying out, this ensured Allen avoided the double stack and he found himself surging to 11^th.

Even when the Safety Car was out there was more drama, with Wood ahead of Randle, but the Tickford driver appearing to get to the Safety Car line and secure fifth before his WAU rival.

Eventually after multiple laps of trying with harmony between both teams, the correct order was established ahead of the Lap 16 restart with Payne leading Waters and De Pasquale.

The battle immediately resumed at the restart with Wood forcing himself down the inside at the first corner of green flag racing to retake fifth.

The Kiwi was a man on a mission and also soon snared fourth from Le Brocq.

An instant fastest lap from Payne ensured he remained in firm control of the race and denied Waters the opportunity to challenge.

But this breathing space only lasted two laps before the Tickford driver slashed the margin and started hounding the home hero.

The Tickford driver was making significant ground at the Turn 11 hairpin especially, but could not quite get close enough and again fell a second back by Lap 23.

Further back there was still some willing racing with Courtney, Feeney, Davison and Mostert nose to tail, while Reynolds and Heimgartner had a hairy door to door moment coming out of Turn 9.

It was also on further up the order as Randle, Kostecki and Brown started rubbing each other for sixth.

It ended in tears as contact from Kostecki sent Randle spinning to the infield at Turn 2 and the DJR driver was the latest to receive a 15s penalty.

For a second time in the race Murray found himself touring the grass, this time it was wild on the exit of Turn 9 after grazing wheel to wheel contact with Courtney.

Two drivers that were able to go side by side through the fast section were Brown and Le Brocq with the Triple Eight driver prevailing by the time they arrived at the hairpin to snare fourth.

By the final five laps Le Brocq had little to fight with as Kostecki and Hill also eased past quickly.

De Pasquale looked safe in third to give Team 18 a further boost after being named as the new GM homologation team.

But Wood, buoyed by the home support, had other ideas as he snuck past to steal the podium place at Turn in the final laps.

The fun returns with another 37-lap race to come at 13.05 AEST.

Results Race 8 37 laps Taupo

Pos Driver Team Laps Margin

1 Matt Payne Grove Racing 37 01:00:36.8158 –

2 Cameron Waters Tickford 37 +4.1020 +1

3 Ryan Wood WAU 37 +4.9603 +1

4 Anton De Pasquale Team 18 37 +5.2302 +4

5 Will Brown Triple Eight 37 +13.3696 +8

6 Jack Le Brocq Erebus 37 +15.4242 +1

7 Kai Allen Grove Racing 37 +15.6423 +15

8 Andre Heimgartner BJR 37 +16.4001 +3

9 James Golding PremiAir 37 +22.3390 +10

10 Will Davison DJR 37 +24.1099 -5

11 David Reynolds Team 18 37 +26.1472 +9

12 Brodie Kostecki DJR 37 +26.4830 -10

13 Chaz Mostert WAU 37 +26.7204 -7

14 Cameron Hill MSR 37 +28.5514 -5

15 Broc Feeney Triple Eight 37 +28.9939 -4

16 Bryce Fullwood BJR 37 +29.5126 -1

17 Richie Stanaway PremiAir 37 +30.8648 –

18 Jaxon Evans BJR 37 +33.2243 -2

19 Nick Percat MSR 37 +37.7840 +2

20 Aaron Cameron BRT 37 +46.2586 +3

21 James Courtney BRT 37 +50.4458 +3

22 Thomas Randle Tickford 37 +53.3942 -10

23 Cooper Murray Erebus 37 +1:23.4503 -13

NC Macauley Jones BJR 9 +28 Laps -4

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

Sat 10.50: Supercars Race 8 (37 laps)

Sat 14.05: Supercars Race 9 (37 laps)

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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