Rising star Matt Payne has claimed his second career Supercars win in a race overshadowed by a horror showing for series-leading Triple Eight duo Will Brown and Broc Feeney.
Grove Racing's three-pit strategy proved a winner as Payne's Mustang blitzed the grid from 10th to finish race 14 in Townsville on Sunday a good six seconds ahead of Tickford Racing's Cam Waters in second.
Payne (1065 points) solidified his position in fifth place in the standings with his first win of a promising season marred by unfortunate crashes.
"It's been a bit of a tough couple of months lately and to finally capitalise on good speed in the race we had yesterday and to line that up with all of our stats today, we're all pretty proud," said the young New Zealander.
"Everyone's stoked and I think we're going to carry this momentum forward for the rest of the year."
Championship benchmark Brown (1515 points) had a nearly unblemished 2024 before Sunday's race.
The 26-year-old's day was effectively over in the opening lap, bumped into the wall by Team 18's David Reynolds coming into turn three.
Brown hauled down a podium finish from 13th on the grid on Saturday but was unable to complete another miracle drive with a battered front end in his Camaro, finishing dead last.
Triple Eight teammate Feeney (1437 points) also had issues on lap one, falling outside the top 10 after he too was shunted into the fence.
The young gun recovered to finish seventh, slicing Brown's series lead to just 78 points.
Waters looked like he would claim his second race win in two days after jumping into first place on the opening straight.
Birthday boy Jack Le Brocq got off to a shocking start from pole and was immediately passed by Waters, Thomas Randle and Will Davison.
But on the bumpy, tyre-chewing Reid Park street circuit, it was Payne who maintained the fastest pace throughout.
He came out of his third pit stop with a five-second lead over Waters, who pitted just twice, and held his lead with fresher tyres.
Grove Racing owner Stephen Grove said the most important thing for the team was getting into the pits first to undercut rival Chaz Mostert, who they knew would be on the same tyre strategy.
Mostert (1341) rounded out the podium and closed the gap further on the Triple Eight pair after his runner-up finish on Saturday.
Although Mustangs performed well throughout the weekend, Mostert still felt the new cars were struggling with teething problems, blaming jamming wheel nuts during tyre changes for poor track placement coming out of the pits.
"These wheel nuts in these Gen3 cars are still the worst wheel nuts that I've ever seen in any racing category around the world," he said.
"So whoever homologated them, I don't know what you're doing but they're terrible."
RACE 14 RESULTS:
1. Matt Payne (Grove Racing)
2. Cam Waters (Tickford Racing)
3. Chaz Mostert (Walkinshaw Andretti United)
4. Jack Le Brocq (Erebus Motorsports)
5. Thomas Randle (Tickford Racing)
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS:
1. Will Brown - 1515 pts
2. Broc Feeney - 1437 pts
3. Chaz Mostert - 1341 pts
4. Cam Waters - 1126 pts
5. Matt Payne - 1065 pts
