Penrite Racing moves up in Supercars standings following solid visit to Townsville

Penrite Racing has moved to 2nd in the Repco Supercars Championship standings after a solid weekend for Matthew Payne and Kai Allen in Townsville this weekend.

With the team heading into the NTI Townsville 500 in third place in the team’s championship, good results on Friday and Saturday contributed to a jump in position before Sunday’s result solidified the position.

Payne had a consistent weekend with a trio of top five finishes, which was highlighted by a podium on Saturday afternoon, temporarily lifting the New Zealander to second on the standings above Will Brown.

Payne’s weekend began with a busy four-session Friday, starting out with 11th and 5th in the two practice sessions, before qualifying on the 2nd row for the round’s first race that afternoon.

Despite a slow start where he lost a couple of positions early, Payne capitalised on some battles ahead of him to work his way into 4th where he remained for the rest of the 35-lap race.

On Saturday, Payne showcased his electrifying pace by topping the timesheets in Qualifying 1 before securing a front row start alongside David Reynolds in the Top 10 Shootout.

Payne managed to get the jump on the polesitter off the line and survived in the lead through two safety car periods, only to lose the top spot to championship leader Broc Feeney during the pit stops.

He remained in 2nd for much of the race, but fell to third with 19 laps to go where he stayed until the chequered flag. The result saw Payne move into 2nd in the drivers’ standings and helped Penrite Racing into 2nd on the team standings.

Another strong performance in Qualifying on Sunday morning saw Payne secure a front row start for the weekend’s final race, which was highlighted by a timesheet-topping run in Qualifying 2.

While Payne had a chance to claim the lead in the opening stages of the race, he fell to 3rd as a result. Some tough battles with Brown and some challenging moments throughout the 70-lap affair prevented the 22-year-old from regaining his starting position as he eventually settled for 5th, as well as 3rd in the standings.

For Allen, the youngster was unable to replicate his career breakthrough weekend from Darwin last month, but still picked up valuable points towards his charge to the Finals.

Notching up 5th and 11th during the weekend’s practice sessions, Allen qualified in 11th for Friday’s race and would have been hoping to make up some ground in the race but unfortunately lost multiple places early on and was unable to fully recover – eventually settling for 15th.

A strong start to Saturday’s race saw Allen make up four positions after starting from 16th and the rising star was one of the best performers in the opening stint of the race until he got knocked into the wall and lost positions.

The 20-year-old did his best to recover, but lost some positions late and ultimately finished 18th.
Sunday’s result proved the best for Allen as he started and finished inside the top 10, having made the top 10 shootout and qualified in 9th before ending the tough outing in 10th having run on his own for much of it.

Sunday’s finish keeps Allen within reach of the top 10 with three rounds to go before the Finals are decided.

The 2025 Supercars season continues next month with the Century Batteries Ipswich Super 440 on 8-10 August.

We had a really good qualifying car which was strong, just seemed to fall short in the racing unfortunately, just did not quite have the car speed that we needed for the podium – especially today, Payne said.

It’s a little bit disappointing when we put a lot of effort into qualifying to make sure that’s an improvement year on year, and then we sort of don’t back it up for the racing – so that’s clearly something for us to look at. But definitely a good points haul this weekend – did not finish outside the top 5 which is really good for us.

I think we can definitely hold our heads high after this one and be proud of what we achieved.

I think it’s great to come out of this weekend still in third. Obviously we were pretty close to Will coming into this weekend. I think we did everything we could this weekend in terms of results with the car speed we had, but it’s certainly going to be hard going into Ipswich.

That’s their test track so no doubt they’ll be pretty fast. It’s going to be tough to keep that third. It’s the final round as well so it’s all to play for – but we’ll come out swinging.

Matthew Payne – #19 Ford Mustang

This weekend was very much a learning weekend, but car speed probably wasn’t as good as Darwin which made it a bit harder, said Allen.

Where Matty was really good in qualifying, I had to change my driving style so I’ve got a bit to go through next week. Sunday’s race was looking really good – we qualified 9th in the shootout and were going really well, but just didn’t quite have the best pit stops. As a team, we’re going to work hard on improving that for Queensland Raceway and come back swinging.

I’m very competitive and understand it’s my rookie season, but I think from the results we had at Darwin, there is no reason why we can’t have that every round. I’ve got a lot to work on and lots to learn, so I’m just a bit impatient at the moment.

I just need to work on nailing the one-percenters and then making sure I am knuckling down and just executing where I can. I feel like I was a bit up and down this weekend and back to where I was before Darwin, so I need to regroup and work on what I can do pre-event, before Ipswich, to make sure I’m in the right position.

Kai Allen – #26 Ford Mustang

It wasn’t the greatest weekend from a racing perspective, but we did manage to get a podium – but our race pace wasn’t quite where we want it to be and where it’s been the last few rounds. So something we need to work through back at the factory, said Cauchi.

We still had a couple of front-row qualifying positions and we managed to get to 2nd in the team’s championship, which is all very positive.

There are lots of positives from the weekend but also lots to work on for the next round at Queensland Raceway. We’ll go home and we’ll work through all of that in the next couple of weeks.

David Cauchi – Team Principal, Penrite Racing