Matt Payne has added to Penrite Racing’s success at Ruapuna by scoring victory in Saturday’s Race 12 of the Repco Supercars Championship.
Unlike the previous two races, Payne won comfortably by 11s ahead of Red Bull Ampol Racing’s Broc Feeney, while a late-charge from James Golding delivered another podium for the Blanchard Racing Team.
Strategy came to the fore in this race as the decision was whether to fit two or four fresh tyres and this worked for many led by Golding.
Feeney set-up his podium charge off the start when he jumped to third heading into Turn 1.
It was the opening lap where Payne powered his advantage by setting the fastest lap and building a solid advantage to Wood.
Using the Super Soft compound for this race, Feeney led the runners to change two tyres also including Anton De Pasquale, Brodie Kostecki and Ryan Wood.
This didn’t turn out to be the strategy to follow as both Kai Allen and Will Brown took four tyres, but were delayed in the lane too much to make an impact.
After the stops, Payne held a 4s margin from Wood, though the Mobil 1 Truck Assist Racing driver had a concern in the form of Feeney.
A move for second was inevitable and Feeney took the position at Turn 6 and now Kostecki was behind.
It wasn’t long until Kostecki and Wood made contact opening the door for De Pasquale, but a mistake by the DEWALT Racing driver allowed the Shell V-Power Racing Team Mustang back through.
This when Golding entered calculations by disposing of De Pesquale, Kostecki in his overheating Mustang and Wood to get on the podium.
All this battling allowed Payne to take the win from Feeney, Golding, Wood, Kostecki, De Pasquale, Allen, Cam Waters, Jack Le Brocq and rookie Rylan Gray for back-to-back top 10 finishes.
Sunday’s Supercars action at Ruapuna begins at 11:50am NZST/9:50am AEST.