The 23-year-old injured his left wrist when he fell from his bike during a training session earlier this month.
He’s since been undergoing rehabilitation on the injury and has declared himself fully fit for this weekend’s action at Symmons Plains.
The Grove Racing driver attended a media event at the Launceston AFL stadium on Thursday sporting a bandage.
“Obviously it’s not what you want,” Payne told Speedcafe of the injury.
“You want to be all perfect and healthy, but feeling really good, the recovery has been really well.
“We’ll be at 100 percent, for sure.”
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Payne confirmed the injury was a sprain and said he’s undertaken all the rehabilitation he can ahead of returning to the cockpit.
“Just a lot of strength and conditioning and stretching and things like that,” he said.
“It’s all recovered really well. Everyone is really happy with the progress we’ve made.
“I feel like my body has done really well to recover out of it and get ready to drive the car.
“I’ve been doing plenty of simulator and all that. It all seems to be 100 percent.”
Payne said the simulator work has him confident the wrist will withstand the load of gear changes at the Symmons circuit.
The Kiwi admitted he feared the worst when the injury occurred.
“There was certainly a moment there where I thought, ‘OK, this is not great’,” he admitted.
“But we kept positive, luckily we got through these couple of weeks as well as we could have.
“I don’’t really feel like I could have done anything more.”
Payne’s fellow Kiwi Shane van Gisbergen famously made a winning return from a mountain bike injury in 2021.
On that occasion van Gisbergen had suffered a broken collarbone and fractured ribs.
“I certainly didn’t want to copy that, but unfortunately same story headline!” Payne quipped.
Payne enters Tasmania on a two-race winning streak following success at the most recent round in Chirstchurch, New Zealand.
He was also a winner last time out at Symmons Plains, holding off Triple Eight’s Broc Feeney in a thrilling finish to the Sunday race.
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