Winning on Three Wheels

Matt Payne cannot see it. He can only feel it. A car that has gone from planted to greasy in the space of one pit exit, Broc Feeney right on his bumper with 15-odd laps still to run. "Something was wrong because the car had a complete opposite balance to what it was to the first and second stint, so I thought something is obviously wrong," he said afterwards. "Looking back at the tyre, I didn't exactly know what was going on. It felt like it was delaminated or something like that. Looking at the replay, it's pretty amazing that it stayed on considering the amount it was hanging off the rim. I'm just grateful to be standing here and not spun out somewhere down the track."

The tyre held. Then he did a burnout on it.

That is where the Aucklander is at in 2026. Perth handed him pole for both Saturday races, two wins from three starts, victories four and five of the season, and a championship lead stretched to 118 points. Feeney beat him in the second Saturday race and still came away sounding like a man looking uphill. "Those guys are doing such a good job at the moment," Feeney said. "They're a long way in front of everyone, so we've still got a long way to go."

When your rival starts writing your press release, you are going all right.

There's still plenty of mahi needed, and Payne knows exactly where. He is one of the worst starters in the field. Nine races this season he has gone backwards off the line; three, forwards. At Townsville he qualified third and was seventeenth by the end of lap one. "That's on me," he said that day. "They did a great job undercutting and doing what we needed to do."

Slow off the line but not slow to make good. Perth race one, pole position, Cam Waters past him before the first corner had finished, and Payne back in front by lap five with a dive up the inside of the final turn.

Six weekends to go, including Bathurst, where he returns as defending race winner, this time alongside Will Davison, a two-time winner on the mountain. Based on form, a Bathurst back-to-back and a championship title are both well within his sights.