CHANGE is afoot at Grove Racing, the Bathurst 1000-winning squad which still has two drivers in the 2025 Supercars title chase.
David Cauchi is finishing up as team principal at season’s end, ex-Ferrari F1 ace Riccardo Corte is coming onboard as Kai Allen’s 2026 race engineer, and Alistair McVean is being promoted to head of performance.
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The Groves have yet to provide any indication that they’ll replace Cauchi as TP, perhaps pointing to a more hands-on role going forward for CEO Brenton Grove.
What is more certain is how McVean fits in as head of performance relative to technical director Grant McPherson…
Kai Allen rejoices with his Grove Racing crew after a crucial Gold Coast podium. Pic: Supplied/Jack Martin
“We have a very clear engineering structure where anything to do with total vehicle performance and results ultimately reports to Shippy (McPherson),” Grove Jr told V8 Sleuth.
“That could be car build, mileage requirements; more than just what set-up goes in the car.
“So Grant is across a variety of things in our business. Basically anything that has got to do with running the race cars and making sure that they’re capable and do win races is falling under Grant.
“Whereas Al’s role is much more focused on the performance of the cars on-track. So, how we roll the cars out from a set-up perspective, what set-up philosophies we try, how we learn in practice, making sure that whilst we’re testing in practice we’re getting valuable learnings to make decisions on later.
“So Grant is responsible for the holistic performance of every part of our race cars, whereas Al’s role is very much an engineering function and responsible for optimising the cars and the resources he’s been given by Grant.”
Jack Bell is set to continue as Matt Payne’s race engineer in 2026.
Payne and Allen are the third and sixth seeds, respectively, heading into next week’s Sandown semi-finals.
Alistair McVean. Pic: Ross Gibb