Sweet success for one NZ driver, heartbreak for another at Mt Panorama, watch on TVNZ+<\/a><\/p>\nTander also became the third driver in history to win six Bathurst 1000 races.<\/p>\n
Triple Eight star Broc Feeney remained at the top of the Supercars series standings despite finishing sixth, but he took a slim 30-point lead ahead of the inaugural finals.<\/p>\n
New Zealand\u2019s success at Bathurst continues\u00a0\u2013 with yet another young prospect emerging from the pack.\u00a0\u00a0 (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
Payne and Feeney were among 10 drivers set to take their championship hunt across a three-round sudden-death series, starting with the Gold Coast 500.<\/p>\n
Points will reset between finals rounds and should Feeney suffer a similar fate on the Gold Coast, his bid for a maiden title will be over.<\/p>\n
A crash by Feeney was among the many dominoes that fell en route to Payne’s victory on Sunday.<\/p>\n
He was third when he slammed into the wall at Forrest’s Elbow with 35 laps remaining.<\/p>\n
Payne crossed the finish line in second but claimed victory after race leader James Golding received a five-second penalty for colliding with Erebus rookie Cooper Murray in the dying laps.<\/p>\n
The last time Ford won the Supercars series was Scott McLaughlin’s triumph in 2020.<\/p>\n
Payne, who won the inaugural Enduro Cup, said he hadn’t been optimistic about his chances after qualifying 18th.<\/p>\n
“Not going to lie, it was a really hard day for us on Friday [during qualifying],” Payne said.<\/p>\n
“We just didn’t have the pace. We did a good job tuning the car around.<\/p>\n
“The whole race was basically wet, so that was what you had to be quick in.”<\/p>\n
Team 18 driver and 2017 Bathurst winner David Reynolds was second, with Golding made to settle for third.<\/p>\n
Erebus driver Murray was fourth.<\/p>\n
Reynolds and Golding wouldn’t feature in the finals, with the pair finishing the regular season 16th and 18th.<\/p>\n
“In the wet, it was the scariest piece of shit I’ve ever had in my life, and I feared for my life many, many times in that race,” Reynolds joked.<\/p>\n
“Mate, it was so dumb, like we’re going like 300 kilometres an hour and I can’t see anything.<\/p>\n
“I’ve got kids now. I’ve got things to live for.”<\/p>\n
Defending champion Will Brown was third in the standings after finishing 17th, followed by Tickford rival Cam Waters.<\/p>\n
Waters was 12th at Bathurst after co-driver Mark Winterbottom crashed early.<\/p>\n
Other finals contenders are Dick Johnson Racing star Brodie Kostecki, Chaz Mostert and young gun Ryan Wood.<\/p>\n
Supercars action returns on October 24 at the Gold Coast 500, before the Sandown 500 and the Adelaide grand final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Newly-minted Bathurst 1000 champion Matt Payne could be the man to deliver Ford their first Supercars title in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,111,139,69,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-75454","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75454","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=75454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}