Matt Payne will make his Supercars debut this weekend. Photo / Photosport
Matt Payne will make his Supercars debut this weekend. Photo / Photosport
The biggest talking point of this weekend’s opening round of the 2023 Supercars championship will be how the new Gen 3 cars fare on the streets of Newcastle — and there is a new Kiwi driver who will be tackling them.
The introduction of the new Camaros and Mustangs hasbeen fraught with delays, worries about the new technologies and if there will be close racing.
The new cars have reduced downforce and are around 65 kilograms lighter with smaller wheel nuts, a single-nozzle fuel receptacle, and in testing have been hard on tyres. The thinking is the racing will be closer, but several drivers, including defending champion Shane van Gisbergen, have been quiet on that front.
There are three main-game rookies in the field this year, and one of them is Kiwi Matthew Payne, who may just be the bloke joining Anton De Pasquale, Will Davison, Cam Waters and Chaz Mostert in challenging van Gisbergen for race wins.
Payne is new to being a main-game driver, but he’s no neophyte to racing against the rest of the pack, having thundered around Mount Panorama last year. He won the Mike Kable Young Gun Award last year and has been compared to Scott McLaughlin in some quarters.
Payne, who replaced the retired Lee Holdsworth at Penrite Racing, is the youngest of the three rookies and has a fierce brains trust behind him in the likes of Grant McPherson, David Cauchi and Alistair McVean.
“It’s pretty special to finally graduate into the main game and it’s certainly going to be challenging around Newcastle,” Payne told the Herald.
“I don’t think there is a more exciting place to make your main game debut than around here.”
This weekend is a level playing field, with no one having much useable data pertaining to the Gen 3 cars. The data they do have hasn’t come from a street circuit like Newcastle, but Payne doesn’t mind the new cars.
“The start of it was a bit rocky as no one knew what to expect. Everyone was trying to work out what to do with the setup and other stuff.
“Definitely hard at the start but it got better as we had more time with the car. I don’t think it’s much about how they go, it’s more about the technology that comes with them.
“Everyone has some of the same parts and the feeling isn’t too dissimilar to the old car, but we have lost a lot of downforce. It’s not too bad when you put a new set of tyres on it.”
Matt Payne during Supercars test day. Photo / Photosport
The track where the cars will make their debut runs through the eastern end of the Newcastle CBD and will challenge all the drivers as it’s a tight and tricky 2.6km to navigate flat-out while keeping the car off the walls.
“It’s pretty spectacular and the walls are close and tight, so will make for some interesting racing,” said Payne.
“I’m sure there will be a few people making some mistakes, not me I hope, and it’s all going to be about minimising any mistakes.
“I think street courses are pretty cool but definitely challenging when you’re coming into it for the first time. It’s going to have to be a weekend where you just keep your head down and focus on the job at hand.”
The job for everyone in the field is to beat van Gisbergen. The New Zealander was imperious in winning his third series title, notching 21 wins including the Bathurst 1000. During testing there was nothing spectacular to report with the Red Bull Ampol Racing’s Camaro, but that was pretty much the same for all the teams.
The Kiwi has won four of the last six season-opening races, and if he does it again this weekend the rest of the field may be in for a very long year.
