{"id":926025,"date":"2026-10-13T00:40:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T00:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/926025\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T00:40:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T00:40:17","slug":"supercars-matt-payne-reflects-on-bathurst-1000-fifth-place-finish-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/926025\/","title":{"rendered":"Supercars: Matt Payne reflects on Bathurst 1000 fifth-place finish, 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

MATT Payne<\/a> has a confession after he and Grove Racing\u2019s bid for back-to-back Bathurst 1000 victories came up short.<\/p>\n

That he would have happily accepted a fifth-place result if it had been offered to him pre-race, such was the #19 Penrite Mustang off the pace throughout the 2026 edition of the four-day spectacle.<\/p>\n

Bathurst was just the second time all season that Payne qualified outside the top eight.<\/p>\n

As it turned out, fifth at the chequered for him and Will Davison<\/a> came despite two penalties: one for the Kiwi squeezing former teammate David Reynolds<\/a> off the road down Conrod Straight, and another for a pitstop infringement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one that could have been more. Naturally you think about what could have been without the five-second and pitlane penalty but if you said to me at the start of the day we would finish fifth, I would take it,\u201d said Payne.<\/p>\n

<\/a> <\/p>\n

\u201cOn a positive note, the #19 was absolutely unreal all day and Will did a really great job, even amongst the main game field.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully we can bring the trophy back home again next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sister car of Kai Allen<\/a> and Tim Slade<\/a> finished 20th after being plagued by brake woes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started off really strong and were the fastest car on track, but then we had a brake issue occur which we battled a lot with for the rest of the race, and sadly ruined our day,\u201d said Allen.<\/p>\n

\u201cStill finished and good to get those points but it just didn\u2019t end the way we wanted.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinals season now which I\u2019m looking forward to so time to go home, recover and come back swinging at Gold Coast!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MATT Payne has a confession after he and Grove Racing\u2019s bid for back-to-back Bathurst 1000 victories came up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":926026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-926025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926025","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=926025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/926026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=926025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=926025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=926025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}