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The young Kiwi took a second career win in impressive style on the Sunday in Townsville after the Grove squad rolled the dice on a three-stop strategy.
It proved to be an inspired call, Payne executing the strategy perfectly to lead home Cam Waters and Chaz Mostert for his first win since the season finale in Adelaide last year.
The win was much-needed for the Grove outfit which, after a strong end to last season and start to this, had struggled with outright pace from the Perth SuperSprint onwards.
Speaking ahead of this weekend’s Panasonic Air Conditioning Sydney SuperNight, Payne admitted that the win was a welcome morale boost.
“It’s obviously given me really good confidence,” he said.
“At the end of last year with the Adelaide win, that obviously boosted the team’s morale quite high and we came into this year with a lot of confidence, but probably lost a little bit over the last two rounds.
“So it’s kind of the perfect way to reward the team back and try and boost some of the morale heading into the last few races of the season.
“I think the team was already really happy. We’re already in a really good position, the results just didn’t quite show it. So it’s good to align everything on a race weekend and get the job done.”
At the same time he says capitalising on the win, and keeping the form up in Sydney, is crucial.
“It’s super important; if there’s any time to capitalise it’s right now,” he said.
“So we need to really focus on what we’re trying to, what set-up we’re trying to build for Sydney and I need to do my preparation for that track.
“It wasn’t particularly one of our strong suits last year, so there’s a lot of work to do. I think our philosophies from last year since we raced here have changed a lot, so it’s going to be refreshing coming back there.”
Last year’s Sydney hit-out was tough for Grove Racing, with then-lead driver David Reynolds suffering a suspension failure in the first race and finished 20th in the second after a first-corner incident.
Payne, meanwhile, struggled for speed and was outside the top 20 in all competitive sessions.
Still, he says he’s excited to return this year.
“I actually really do enjoy Sydney,” he said. “I think it’s a great track.
“It’s obviously really cool racing under the lights. It’s something we don’t really get to do often, so that’s another thing that I really enjoy doing.
“We’ve got to work really hard and try and knuckle down and sort of consolidate running at the front.”
