IT’S hardly uncommon for the Supercars silly season to conjure up something out of left field.
On the surface, the driver market for 2027 looks unusually straightforward.
No more than seven seats are up for grabs – quite possibly less – and the public statement made last month by Matt Payne indicates the major curveball that seemed a chance outside of that bunch should now be off the table.
Of the top six teams in pitlane, just one potential vacancy exists. That is for the #20 seat occupied by David Reynolds.
The 2017 Bathurst 1000 winner last year did just enough to convince Team 18 to take up its one-year option on his contract, and he duly repaid them with a Great Race podium mere days later.
On the basis that Payne is not available until 2028, all parties seem content with rolling over the status quo for one more season.
Reynolds, after all, remains a force on his day and is a popular figure with the Team 18 staff and sponsors alike.
And for the man who has just turned 41, Mount Waverley shapes as a stable, long-term home even beyond his full-time racing days.
Win/win.
But there’s two reasons a change could occur.
One, if Reynolds no longer wants to keep the seat warm for his eventual successor and decides it’s worth jumping at a plum co-drive that may or may not present.
Triple Eight (at least on the Red Bull Ampol side) and Grove Racing both have their co-drivers locked down through 2027, but perhaps elsewhere there might be a dangling carrot too good to pass up. Say, for example, a return to the Walkinshaw camp to form a powerful combo for years to come with Chaz Mostert (incumbent Fabian Coulthard continues to be a strong performer, but is now into his fifth season out of full-time Supercars).
Keep in mind that few drivers spring to life at Bathurst quite like Reynolds does.
Or reason two, if Team 18 loses patience with bleeding teams’ championship points.
Reynolds is more than 500 points behind De Pasquale after 19 races. It’s part of why Team 18 is only fifth in the live pitlane order – although in fairness, Tickford Racing and Dick Johnson Racing have been held back by similar circumstances.
David Reynolds. Pic: Ross Gibb
There has been some bad luck along the way, such as when Reynolds was spun late in the Friday Darwin race by Jack Le Brocq, but there’s no getting around a 16-3 head-to-head qualifying record in De Pasquale’s favour (following a 26-8 landslide in 2025).
So, in the improbable situation that a change were to be made, for whatever reason, V8 Sleuth has cooked up a left-field solution.
A one-year deal for Cooper Murray.
Paddock sources indicate an end-of-year Murray/Erebus Motorsport split is inevitable.
It would have to be clear to all concerned parties that a Murray/Team 18 arrangement would be a one-year stopgap, with Payne’s arrival presumably a matter of time and De Pasquale not going anywhere.
As much as things haven’t worked out this year, Murray is super speedy, no doubt about it.
Go back to his Super2 days; Murray and Kai Allen were well matched during their time as Eggleston Motorsport teammates. The latter narrowly won the head-to-head qualifying battle 11-9 and has since proven himself to be one of the best in the business at the top level.
Murray also dazzled with a top 10 qualifying performance in his debut Supercars weekend at the 2024 Darwin Triple Crown, and mustered Albert Park starting slots of fifth and third in the second round of his rookie season.
Cooper Murray. Pic: Mark Walker
He increasingly grabbed the upper hand last year over Le Brocq, who has shown himself to be more than competent in 2026, and notably contended for Bathurst 1000 victory.
The 24-year-old finds himself 14-5 up against highly rated rookie teammate Jobe Stewart in the head-to-head stakes this year at Erebus.
While a deal involving a shelf life of 12 months seems slightly awkward, there’s reason to think it could be beneficial for both parties.
For Murray, the #20 is the best seat available, and would provide the chance for him to gamble on himself as American athletes often do in free agency – i.e. take a short-term contract when their stocks are low and back themselves to make themselves a far more attractive proposition for when they return to the open market.
As for Team 18, perhaps an injection of fresh blood motivated by a dash of desperation could be a worthwhile risk versus reward proposition in search of more points and a sterner internal challenge for De Pasquale on one-lap performance.
Remember too that Team 18 gave Murray his first shot in a Supercar, via a lowkey Winton evaluation back in 2022.
It’s not the likely route, but as Team 18 boss Adrian Burgess has said himself, people in his position aren’t doing their job properly if they’re not assessing all options.
Adrian Burgess. Pic: Mark Walker
“We haven’t come to that point,” he said recently on MotorRacing 360 when asked if a decision on Reynolds’ future was imminent.
“Dave is one of the elder guys, we love him. Dave can turn it on when the car is right and he’s at a track that he loves: you go to Gold Coast, go to Bathurst, go to Adelaide and you know he is going to be in there. But we have got other tracks where he won’t.
“But it’s not that time at the moment.
“And people criticising us for being in the market – it’s our job to be in the market, it’s our job to talk to the managers and understand who’s on-contract and who’s not.”
Reynolds, it’s worth remembering, did score a pole position last year in Townsville, where the 2026 Supercars season resumes this coming weekend.
Anyhow, food for thought if nothing else…
The Undercut – How hot is too hot?
The Undercut is back for another week, downloading a hot weekend in the Top End for Supercars!