Payne might not have come up with a second race win in the top tier after not only his crash with Cam Waters while leading the Saturday encounter but also the bump from Chaz Mostert when he was again out in front on the Sunday.
It was a weekend, however, during which he achieved a first Repco Supercars Championship pole position, as well as just his second and third podiums in the competition.
Payne, winner Feeney, and runner-up Will Brown made for a new record youngest podium in Race 3 of the season, on the Thursday at Albert Park, at an average age of 22 years and 327 days.
The trio beat the record (23 years and 234 days) set less than 12 months ago when Feeney stood on the top step at Wanneroo with Brown and Brodie Kostecki either side of him.
Feeney, who is 15 days younger than Payne, described the new marker set in Melbourne as “awesome.”
He added, “To see people giving young drivers a shot… Obviously what my team did with myself and then what Groves did with Matty, it just seems so similar to what I went through 12, 18 months ago.
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“I mean, he wins Adelaide and then comes out and has a great start to the year, so things are pretty similar.
“See, Will’s the old guy here now,” quipped Feeney of his Triple Eight Race Engineering team-mate.
“He’s actually pushing the age up but, no, it’s unreal. Yeah, 25, 21, and 21 is pretty wild.”
The similarities between Feeney and Payne are, of course, not only in their on-track results at Championship level, but also the fact that both are products of their team’s Super2 programmes, with Grove entering the competition for the express purpose of blooding the latter.
Payne’s performance in the #19 Penrite Mustang at Albert Park, as well as Supercars returnee Richie Stanaway’s in the sister #26 entry, led to team owner Stephen Grove making two bold predictions for the rest of 2024 and beyond.
“Matty has come a long way now and he will be up there challenging for wins for the rest of his Supercars career,” he declared.
“Richie is building and building, and every race on the weekend he got stronger.
“We definitely now have a car that we think will be quick everywhere through the rest of the season.”
Stanaway is in fact the higher of the two in the drivers’ championship, although it is a close-run thing at sixth and seventh.
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