One stop not plan A for Payne

For the second race in a row, Penrite Racing’s smarts almost snatched victory, but Matt Payne revealed the one-stop was not the first option.

Starting 10th, Payne found himself in the lead to the tune of 18s by smartly perfecting the one-stop strategy.

Although the Kiwi was ultimately reeled in by winner Chaz Mostert, it was still all smiles in the Penrite Racing garage.

Payne made the biggest gain of the whole field with nine spots and the only driver in the top 10 to complete the 51 laps on two sets of tyres.

Like Townsville Payne raced out of the blocks shooting from ninth to sixth in the first two laps before showing impressive patience for the remainder of the race to drive to a number and make the tyres life, especially after his one and only stop on Lap 23.

Despite the bold call ultimately paying significant dividends, Payne revealed he actually started the race with the intent of following the status quo and stopping twice.

“It is actually quite funny because we set out to do a two stop and once we saw our pace drop we knew we sort of needed to keep going and give it a try,” he said.

“Once they came over the radio saying we are thinking of a one stop I thought ‘man you have got some balls’.

“I was along for the ride and trusted them the whole way and they did a brilliant job.

“If we were on two stops we would not have finished this high up, so just really proud of the team to back themselves and do a great job.”

In the battle with Mostert, once caught Payne knew he had no ammunition and focused on keeping Randle behind and the Tickford driver was never a threat, being 2s back at the finish.

“I had to be super disciplined. It is not easy doing 28 laps around here. It was hard work,” Payne recalled.

“I could see the gap on my dash and it was coming down.

“I knew it would be touch and go from the start of the stint and then he was going to get me with about four or so laps to go.

“Then I tried to make it easy and not lose too much time because I knew our battle was with Thomas at the end.”

Having gone for the one stop tonight, Payne now has an extra set of tyres to play with for Sunday afternoon’s 51-lapper where tyre degradation will be a bigger factor.

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