CLICK HERE<\/a> to purchase tickets to the 2026 Repco Adelaide Motorsport Festival.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s satisfying to have Matty equal top in the championship, but it\u2019s very early days.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow we\u2019re excited to be heading to the Grand Prix as we have fast cars and we\u2019ve done well there in the past.\u2019<\/p>\n
Allen\u2019s Sunday form delivered on expectations that Grove now has two genuine winning threats in its stable.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s great to have two cars that have been really fast over the weekend,\u201d said Payne following his second place in the Sunday race.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just didn\u2019t quite have the race pace [on Sunday], so we\u2019ll look at that, but he obviously had a really fast car, so a good data point to go off there.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s doing a killer job and hopefully we can truck on like we\u2019re doing for the rest of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Matt-Payne-Sydney-500.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Matt Payne in action. Image: InSyde Media<\/p>\n
Allen made the Grand Final in his rookie 2025 season by narrowly scraping through the various cut-offs after Bathurst, the Gold Coast and Sandown.<\/p>\n
By contrast, Payne was second to Feeney in the Sprint Cup, won the Enduro Cup and scored the second-most points across the full season with five race victories.<\/p>\n
Damage incurred in an unnecessary fight with Cam Waters while set to advance through Sandown, though, ended his title hopes.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year we did quite a good job as a team and I just had a bad day when I shouldn\u2019t have and didn\u2019t have the points to advance,\u201d said Payne.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we need to change our approach for this year. We just need to keep doing what we\u2019re doing and trying to win races.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re here to do and what\u2019s going to give us the most points.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/285241.gif\")
<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matt Payne on the Sunday podium with Broc Feeney, Cam Waters and Ford Racing’s Australian manager Brendan McGinniskin.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,101817,101818,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-504906","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-grove-racing","11":"tag-matt-payne","12":"tag-motor","13":"tag-motor-sports","14":"tag-motosport","15":"tag-motosports","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Grove](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Sydney-500-Sunday-podium.jpg\")