Payne explains what caused race-changing crash
Supercars
2h
"Missed downshift" behind Matt Payne's crash at The Cutting
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Penrite Racing driver drops to sixth in the championship
A "missed downshift" was all it took for Matt Payne to become the only victim of an intense Repco Bathurst 1000 after a "character-building" crash at The Cutting.
Running in eighth place at the time, Payne was running all by himself when he made an unforced error and slid into the outside wall at The Cutting.
The crash was in similar fashion to Scott Pye's incident in Practice 2 on Thursday. However, where Pye had three nights and a race to bounce back, Payne threw five hours of work down the drain.
It was an abrupt end to what was initially a promising weekend for the 22-year-old Kiwi, who claimed provisional pole on Friday in Boost Mobile Qualifying.
However, Sunday had proven to be difficult, with co-driver Garth Tander making an uncharacteristic error and running up the Murray's Corner escape road in his first stint.
Speaking on the broadcast, Payne couldn't hide his disappointment.
“It was pretty simple really, I just missed the downshift, got loose and there’s no real coming back from that at that section of the track,” Payne said.
“Really disappointed. Our car was okay, we were trucking along pretty nicely there for a bit, but just a bad mistake on my part which ended up ruining our day, so not much to say."
Payne, however, insisted he will "keep beating the hell out of this joint" until he brings home a strong result at the Mountain, following finishes of sixth and 11th.
“I didn’t want it to be me, I was hoping it was someone else in the fence. But it reminds you how easily it can go wrong around this joint,” Payne added.
“It’s definitely character-building, but I’ll keep beating the hell out of this joint until I go well here.”
The 2024 Repco Supercars Championship will resume at the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500 on October 25-27. Tickets for the event are on sale now.
