How Ford Mustang Driver Payne Turned Supercars Season Around

August 17, 2024 6:02 am

Matt Payne left Darwin in June 2024 disappointed, holding down ninth place in points and in desperate need of a reset. Payne did just that, turning his Supercars Championship back in the right direction after Darwin, winning at Townsville in the No. 19 Ford Mustang GT and furthering his quest for the overall title.

Payne said he mentally “reset” himself, according to Supercars.com. He left Darwin with disappointing 15^th and 20^th place results, a discouraging result after a relatively promising start to the season, when he earned two poles and two podium finishes. While his No. 19 Mustang was speedy on short runs, he just didn’t have the long-run speed to challenge the leaders.

However, Payne took the season by the horns to win Townsville before finishing second at the following race at Sydney. He earned 528 point throughout two rounds, bested only by Chaz Mostert, driver of the No. 25 Ford Mustang, who earned 567.

“I’ve sort of taken a bit of an approach of sort of resetting the championship after Darwin and kind of going from there,” Payne said. “I think we’ve done a good job in the last couple of rounds and it’s really important for us to capitalize 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.”

Payne also said he’s looking forward to the challenge of racing at Tasmania and fully intends to keep his momentum from the last few rounds rolling.

“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,” he said. “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 tires up for lap one or two.”

Payne is currently fifth in overall points, 423 points behind leader Will Brown.

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