fell from his bike during a training session earlier this month.<\/a><\/p>\nHe\u2019s since been undergoing rehabilitation on the injury and has declared himself fully fit for this weekend\u2019s action at Symmons Plains.<\/p>\n
The Grove Racing driver attended a media event at the Launceston AFL stadium on Thursday sporting a bandage.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously it\u2019s not what you want,\u201d Payne told Speedcafe of the injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to be all perfect and healthy, but feeling really good, the recovery has been really well.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll be at 100 percent, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Payne confirmed the injury was a sprain and said he\u2019s undertaken all the rehabilitation he can ahead of returning to the cockpit.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust a lot of strength and conditioning and stretching and things like that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all recovered really well. Everyone is really happy with the progress we\u2019ve made.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like my body has done really well to recover out of it and get ready to drive the car.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been doing plenty of simulator and all that. It all seems to be 100 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Payne said the simulator work has him confident the wrist will withstand the load of gear changes at the Symmons circuit.<\/p>\n
The Kiwi admitted he feared the worst when the injury occurred.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was certainly a moment there where I thought, \u2018OK, this is not great\u2019,\u201d he admitted.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we kept positive, luckily we got through these couple of weeks as well as we could have.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019\u2019t really feel like I could have done anything more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Payne\u2019s fellow Kiwi Shane van Gisbergen famously made a winning return from a mountain bike injury in 2021.<\/p>\n
On that occasion van Gisbergen had suffered a broken collarbone and fractured ribs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI certainly didn\u2019t want to copy that, but unfortunately same story headline!\u201d Payne quipped.<\/p>\n
Payne enters Tasmania on a two-race winning streak following success at the most recent round in Chirstchurch, New Zealand.<\/p>\n
He was also a winner last time out at Symmons Plains, holding off Triple Eight\u2019s Broc Feeney in a thrilling finish to the Sunday race.<\/p>\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/t.cfjump.com\/92797\/a\/250635\")
<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matt Payne. Image: InSyde Media The 23-year-old injured his left wrist when he fell from his bike during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[28873,111,139,69,9335,213],"class_list":["post-438267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-matt-payne","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-slot2","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Matt](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Matt-Payne-Tassie.jpg\")