Supercars Sandown: Sunday win sets up Matt Payne for title challenge

Matt Payne has actually taken his 6th Supercars win of the season and sealed his points lead with an all-the-way– however in the end, narrow– win at Sandown Park in Melbourne.

Payne put his Grove Racing Ford Mustang on pole for the 2nd day in a row and beat Anton De Pasquale, who began together with in the Team 18 Chevrolet Camaro, to the very first corner. From there, Payne had the speed to develop a space and he did, till ‘ADP’ cleared traffic and closed over the last laps.

The Camaro had the speed and began the last lap under a 2nd behind, and with Payne dealing with a lot more traffic ahead. The space closed, and Payne hung on, to take the success by 0.7 s.

As De Pasquale drove, 2nd was never ever going to be enough for him to certify as a finalist. Under Supercars’ Finals system, the only method he might make that relocation was to win the race, after Brodie Kostecki’s Saturday win successfully indicated he, Payne and just 2 other chauffeurs might move on.

“That was so difficult, it could not inform you,” Payne smiled after his very first win given that August.

“I saw the train of vehicles, and I handled to get through a few of them. We didn’t have much left at the end, however I handled to get home by the skin of my teeth

We had the vehicle speed this weekend, it was most likely a bit much better than the other day. We discovered ourselves a bit this weekend, we struck all our marks.” Image by: EDGE

Naturally De Pasquale was a dissatisfied runner-up.

“I offered it whatever, I was attempting to hunt him down,”he stated.

“He got a bit of a much better one and he wasn’t degging as much as I hoped he would. ”

Paradoxically, in a season in which De Pasquale has frequently appearing like Chevrolet’s only competitor, another Camaro was 3rd. Simply 2 weekends after he transferred to the PremiAir Racing after leaving Erebus Motorsport, Cooper Murray began 3rd which is where he ended up, after a drive that was inconspicuous since it did not have anything that appeared like a mistake.

“I am really psychological at the minute,”he smiled after the very first top-three outcome of his profession.

“Second round with this group and we are on the podium. On to larger and larger things.

“I constantly understood I had the belief in my own capability. Thank you to everybody at PremiAir Racing for offering me the chance. I left the and it was a stable race from there, most likely among the most convenient races I have actually had in the Main Game.”

Broc Feeney took 4th in his Triple Eight Ford, consequently guaranteeing that he is among the 4 Finalists, on what was a challenging weekend for the group. Will Brown began the weekend in Finals contention however his hopes were doomed before the race began. He stopped working to advance from the very first stage of Qualifying by 0.04 s and began the race from 19th, from where just freakish scenarios would have put him in contention to win. No such occasions came; by the flag he was an excellent 6th, simply 12 seconds behind colleague Feeney, however it was win-or-bust for the previous champ. Image by: EDGE

De Pasquale’s 2nd location determined that the 3 greatest in points advance to Adelaide– which suggested that Chaz Mostert was the guy who made it. From the start he worked to do, after losing out on the Top 10 Shootout by 0.02 s, and from 11th on the grid, required to move through the field rapidly. At one point he was seventh on the roadway, with the other 4 Toyotas in the field running in a line on his tail …

He made a variety of important hand down the method to the outcome, especially to 2nd 5th ahead of Thomas Randle (Tickford Ford). He had the much better of the outcomes for the group, with colleague Cam Waters beginning with 19th and having a hard time in the race. A 15th surface removed him from Finals contention.

Brodie Kostecki had a hard Sunday. Having actually protected his area in the Final Four with Saturday’s success, he scored an own objective– in fact, a drive-through charge– for turning his engine off on the lap to the grid, in breach of the guidelines. That dropped him from 4th on the roadway to 23rd and by the end of the race he was 10th.

The outcomes indicate that 3 of the 4 chauffeurs in contention– Payne, Feeney and Kostecki– will attempt to offer Ford a 2nd successive Drivers’ title, versus a sole Toyota driven by Mostert, the guy who provided that title a year earlier.

3 races wait for the groups, motorists and fans– consisting of a Friday night race for the very first time– on the streets of Adelaide on 27-29 November.

We desire your viewpoint!

– The Motorsport.com Team