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Penrite Racing has won two of the three most recent Supercars Championship races and the latter of those fell to Payne, with a breakthrough triumph at the very end of his rookie season.
The 21-year-old New Zealander showed flashes of speed until such time that his Grove Racing team hit its stride in the latter half of the 2023 campaign, even before the Ford Mustangs received a second in-season aero update.
With the likes of Speedcafe columnist and former Triple Eight Race Engineering boss Roland Dane tipping Grove to be a force this year, Payne can start the campaign without the pressure of searching for that first race win.
“Last year, I knew it was sort of there, especially in the last five or four rounds,” he told Speedcafe.
“I think we genuinely had podium pace and I could see [the win] coming but, if it didn’t come last year, I would have sort of accepted it, but I think it would have put a little bit more pressure on me this year to try and get that win early.
“But, I think now that I’ve got it, it gives me confidence to say, ‘Hey, I think we can definitely do this.’
“So, it’s just about fine-tuning everything else that we needed to improve, and just try and start right off the bat early.”
Asked to elaborate on what that fine-tuning is, Payne replied, “Just all of the little one-percenters.
“We had a pretty good package last year, towards the end of the year.
“We’d developed a lot of our car over the year and, right at the start of the year, we tried a few things and they probably didn’t work out.
“We definitely had a lot better package towards the end of the year than what we started with – I think probably mostly everyone did – but it’s just about improving that, especially with the [aero] changes that have been made over Christmas.
“I think the test day before the first round is going to be really important for everyone to try and figure out what what’s required to make it go faster.”
Payne has a new team-mate this year, with Richie Stanaway replacing David Reynolds in Car #26 in what represents the GP2 race winner’s return to full-time motorsport.
“We spent a little bit of time together towards the end of last year when he was coming to the workshop a little bit, sort of just overseeing what we were doing after the season finished,” said the Grove incumbent.
“This year, I’ve been away a little bit at the start of the year, just cruising, relaxing a little bit and then obviously had [24H] Dubai a week ago.
“So, I’ve just got back but he’s been here for a bit and he’s been making really good progress in the workshop and we’ve had a few laughs over the last week.
“It’s been good to start working with him properly, I guess you could say, and I think we’re going to get along pretty well through throughout the season.”
Pre-season Supercars testing resumes today at Winton, where Southern-based teams will be in action.
