MELBOURNE SUPERSPRINT THURSDAY WRAP

City skylines and lakeside views set the scene for the busiest day for Supercars at the Formula 1 Rolex Australian Grand Prix with 2 Practice sessions kicking off the Thursday action. The first of which saw David Reynolds come in P5 and Matt Payne P16. This followed a consistent performance in the second session with a top ten finish for Reynolds and P19 for Payne.

Qualifying for Race 3 saw rookie Matt Payne find great pace – placing his Mustang in the top ten for the first time in a qualifying session. An impressive result for the New Zealand talent in what is his second full time race weekend at Penrite Racing.

Qualifying for Race 4 resulted in Reynolds heading up the Gen3 Fords in the field in P6.

Race 3 begin with Payne off to a solid start running consistently in the top ten for the first ten laps.

Dave was running P21 by lap 10 where he came in for his first pit stop. Payne was maintaining strong pace following Randle in P11 doing a superb job of taking care of his tyres and setting consistent lap times.

A brake lock up for Reynolds in qualifying ruined his chances of a higher finish.

Matt pitted changing rear tyres with one lap remaining with a slight delay.

The closing lap saw Payne in P13 and Dave in P19 where they would both conclude the opening race of the weekend.

Matthew Payne said:

“Good start in Race 3 here, got a good launch and made up a spot or two after the start and had a really good first couple of laps when I was settling in. Over the back at 9 and 10 a couple of guys clipped the tyre bundle in front of me and it just pushed it out into my path. I just clipped it with the right front which gave us a bit of damage which made it difficult to turn left in the race. I think if we didn’t have that mistake, I think we could have been pretty strong inside the top ten. There’s definitely potential there but unfortunate about the early contact. Still not a bad result considering the damage we had.”

David Reynolds said:

“Disappointing day – I think our car was good enough to easily fight for top 4 or 5 and a small mistake in qualifying led to a not-so-great result. In our sport you can have one very small mistake which can ruin your day – today’s a prime example of that but I am looking ahead to tomorrow’s race where there is potential for us to do well.”

Friday will see Race 4 take place at 2:55pm AEDT.