Matthew Payne has continued his fine Perth form with victory in the final race of the weekend, while Andre Heimgartner managed to bring home eleventh. It was a short race for Ryan Wood, who retired before the start.
Off the start, Payne managed to hold onto third place, behind Broc Feeney and Cam Waters. An issue before launch for Wood ended his race before the first corner, as he had to limp back to the lane before the start which put him out of the 80 lap race. Heimgartner also managed to hold position, maintaining his eleventh place spot.
Jobe Stewart was lucky to stay in control of his Erebus Camaro as he lost the rear end on the exit of Turn 3, but managed to keep it on track. Rylan Grey and Will Brown also got together, which left the young DJR driver in the gravel. An investigation was launched by the stewards, and a fifteen second penalty was awarded.
By lap fifteen, Payne was able to make his move on Waters, making a clean divebomb into the last corner. Waters did not fight Payne as he went past, allowing the Kiwi to focus on chasing Feeney.
At the quarter race distance mark, Feeney held a almost two second lead over Payne, ahead of Waters, Brodie Kostecki, and Anton de Pasquale. Drivers atarted to cycle in at this stage, with Will Brown and Mostert being some of the first drivers in.
By lap twenty-five, Payne had managed to reduce the gap to almost a second. At the same time, Jack Le Brocq had a huge off while racing James Golding, with the Matt Stone Racing driver lucky to keep the car out of the wall.
The gap between Feeney and Payne soon fell to seven tenths by lap twenty-eight. Both drivers were expected to pit soon, and Feeney was the first to strike on lap thirty.
Heimgartner also cycled through to the lane at the same time, emerging in sixteenth.
Payne headed into the lane on lap thirty-five, and emerged three and a half seconds behind Feeney.
The race started to move into a strategy race as Payne started to communicate with his team about what strategy they would run.
At the halfway mark, Feeney continued to lead. Payne sat just over three seconds behind, also holding the fastest lap of the race so far. Kostecki had made a move for third laps before, but communications started to show that there had been an issue with fueling for Kostecki, meaning he had less fuel than the team had anticipated – changing his strategy for the race.
The gap to Feeney and Payne started to massively reduce and sat at a second and a half by lap fourty-four, and was half a second by lap fourty-eight.
Payne moved within a tenth by lap fourty-nine, but elected to head into the lane for his second stop on lap fifty-one. Feeney, on a similar strategy, covered Payne off by pitting a lap later.
Feeney emerged a cars length in front of Payne on pit exit, but the Kiwi, with tyres at temperature, was able to make easy work of moving past Feeney in an impressive move up the hill.
However, Feeney remained close behind Payne, not letting the Kiwi run away. At the same time, Heimgartner held thirteenth position, with Golding applying pressure to the Kiwi.
Reports started to come through of vibrations in the rear of Payne’s car, presumably from contact with Feeney earlier in the race. This allowed Feeney to close up, with both cars inseperable on track with eighteen laps to go.
In an impressive drive so far, Kai Allen sat in seventh after starting twenty-third. Payne started to report that the vibrations were getting worse, and was instructed to try his best to overheat Feeney’s tyres.
The battle for the lead started to allow De Pasquale in third to close up, slowly making progress.
With nine laps to go, Payne had eased the pressure as he maintained a half-second gap on Feeney with eight to go.
The gap temporarily moved out to seven tenths with four laps to go. Even with an issue, Payne proved too strong to bring home his second race win of the weekend, and extend his championship lead in the Repco Sprint Cup.
Anton De Pasquale wrapped up the podium, with Waters, Allen, Mostert, Aaron Cameron, Jayden Ojeda, David Reynolds, and Thomas Randle finishing the top 10.
Supercars will resume in Ipswich for the Ipswich Super440 on the 21st of August.
