Supercars Townsville: Payne dominates race two

Matt Payne streaked clear in his Kelly Racing Ford Mustang to dominate the second Supercars race at Townsville in an otherwise exciting contest on Saturday.

Payne started the 68-lap race from second and, after the first pit cycle played out, found himself 11 seconds clear of any of the challengers.

His lead was beyond 10 seconds for all of the second half of the race, so large that at one stage, he discussed with his engineer their tyre strategy for Sunday’s 200km outing.

Payne’s cause was assisted significantly when Brodie Kostecki’s crew had a problem getting his left-rear wheel changed at his first pit stop and by the time he regained the track, he had lost four places.

The Dick Johnson Racing Mustang was quick but did not quite have the race pace of Payne and 2023 champion Kostecki was rewarded with a podium finish in third place.

“It did get a bit lonely,” said Payne. “We like to be in control and have the race from our end. A front row, not a pole but I am really proud of everyone. I didn’t get a great start but the team did an excellent job and I saved a bit of fuel, which helped with track position.”

Between the Fords, a second place trophy was quite a reward for Anton De Pasquale. After qualifying seeded the top 10 cars into the one-lap Shout Out, no Chevrolet Camaros managed to make the grade.

Matt Payne (Photo by: Getty Images)

De Pasquale was the best of breed in 11th and looked to be a chance at getting, maybe, a top six finish. But the Team 18 car sliced its way through the top 10 to second mid-race, and when he dropped two places in the second pit cycle, De Pasquale simply set his aim on the cars ahead and did it again.

“It’s great, the car was a lot better then, we had a big swing at it,” he said. “We had a fresher tyre [than the drivers around him], and I could use it. I was saving fuel for a long time but we had enough margin to Brodie to get it home.”

After a fraught race and the time he lost in the pit lane, Kostecki had to be satisfied with third. “Unfortunate, but it's a long year and the car was plenty fast in the race,” he said.

“The first thing I saw was the fuel [churn] was out, and I wanted to see the fuel [a second churn] go back in. We’ll sort that out tonight. That’s motor racing, sometimes.”

He also thought that his delay might have inadvertently aided De Pasquale’s strategy.

“I probably caused that mess, we reacted to Matty [Payne] and I was out on older tyres than the guys racing behind me, and that helped Anton,” he said.

Behind the top three came the two Tickford Fords. Thomas Randle continued his good form to match team-mate Cam Waters, before letting him by into fourth with four laps to run.

Waters did not quite have the speed he showed in winning Friday’s race, and his cause was not helped when his Tickford Mustang had its exhaust pipe pinched mid-race, costing him some power.

Triple Eight’s Will Brown and Broc Feeney again had to start from outside the top 10. Brown stepped out of his car after a single qualifying run, but missed making the Shoot Out by 0.07s, while Feeney was again simply lacking single lap speed and started from 18th.

But Brown repeated his fine Friday overtaking form, ending the race right behind Randle, with Chaz Mostert (Walkinshaw TWG Toyota Supra) and Feeney close behind.

With his 10th career win Payne has stretched his championship points lead, going into Sunday’s race.

RACE2

All Stats

Cla	Driver		Car	Laps	Time	Interval	Retirement	Points
1	M. Payne Grove Racing		Ford Mustang S650	68	1:27'27.0126			120
2	A. De Pasquale Team 18		Chevrolet Camaro Mk.6	68	+15.2885 1:27'42.3011	15.2885		110
3	B. Kostecki Dick Johnson Racing		Ford Mustang S650	68	+16.0283 1:27'43.0409	0.7398		102
4	C. Waters Tickford Racing		Ford Mustang S650	68	+20.0207 1:27'47.0333	3.9924		93
5	T. Randle Tickford Racing		Ford Mustang S650	68	+20.9078 1:27'47.9204	0.8871		86
6	W. Brown Triple Eight Race Engineering		Ford Mustang S650	68	+21.6969 1:27'48.7095	0.7891		79
7	C. Mostert Walkinshaw TWG Racing		Toyota GR Supra	68	+24.1272 1:27'51.1398	2.4303		73
8	B. Feeney Triple Eight Race Engineering		Ford Mustang S650	68	+26.9569 1:27'53.9695	2.8297		67
9	J. Le Brocq Matt Stone Racing		Chevrolet Camaro Mk.6	68	+27.6907 1:27'54.7033	0.7338		67
10	D. Reynolds Team 18		Chevrolet Camaro Mk.6	68	+33.0126 1:28'00.0252	5.3219		57
11	J. Ojeda PremiAir Racing		Chevrolet Camaro Mk.6	68	+35.2263 1:28'02.2389	2.2137		52
12	K. Allen Grove Racing		Ford Mustang S650	68	+38.6604 1:28'05.6730	3.4341		48
13	C. Murray Erebus Motorsport Penrite		Chevrolet Camaro Mk.6	68	+39.6718 1:28'06.6844	1.0114		44
14	Z. Bates Matt Stone Racing		Chevrolet Camaro Mk.6	68	+43.9151 1:28'10.9277	4.2433		41
15	A. Cameron Blanchard Racing Team		Ford Mustang S650	68	+48.0254 1:28'15.0380	4.1103		37
16	A. Heimgartner Brad Jones Racing		Toyota GR Supra	68	+54.2786 1:28'21.2912	6.2532		34
17	R. Gray Dick Johnson Racing		Ford Mustang S650	68	+1'01.0996 1:28'28.1122	6.8210		32
18	J. Walls Triple Eight Race Engineering		Ford Mustang S650	68	+1'06.6009 1:28'33.6135	5.5013		29
19	M. Jones Brad Jones Racing		Toyota GR Supra	68	+1'07.0706 1:28'34.0832	0.4697		27
20	J. Stewart Erebus Motorsport Penrite		Chevrolet Camaro Mk.6	68	+1'13.5020 1:28'40.5146	6.4314		25
21	D. Fraser PremiAir Racing		Chevrolet Camaro Mk.6	67	+1 Lap 1:27'29.3992	1 Lap		23
22	J. Golding Blanchard Racing Team		Ford Mustang S650	67	+1 Lap 1:27'48.9619	19.5627		21
23	A. Seton Matt Stone Racing		Chevrolet Camaro Mk.6	67	+1 Lap 1:28'08.7090	19.7471		19
24	R. Goodall Tickford Racing		Ford Mustang S650	67	+1 Lap 1:28'36.6967	27.9877		18
25	C. Hill Brad Jones Racing		Toyota GR Supra	66	+2 Laps 1:28'01.0226	1 Lap		16
26	R. Wood Walkinshaw TWG Racing		Toyota GR Supra	60	+8 Laps 1:27'58.5901	6 Laps		15
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