{"id":798425,"date":"2026-07-13T22:20:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T22:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/798425\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T22:20:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T22:20:22","slug":"new-supercars-benchmark-grove-racing-facing-nice-growing-pains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/798425\/","title":{"rendered":"New Supercars benchmark Grove Racing facing \u2018nice growing pains\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Supercars-Townsville-Friday-006.jpg\" alt=\"Grove facing \u2018nice growing pains\u2019 in Supercars spotlight\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGrove Racing performing pit stop practice in Townsville. Image: InSyde Media <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/t.cfjump.com\/92797\/b\/287093\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" rel=\"nofollow sponsored noopener\" onmousedown=\"this.rel=\" nofollow=\"\" sponsored=\"\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none; vertical-align: middle;\" alt=\"\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/t.cfjump.com\/92797\/a\/287093\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s the message from CEO Brenton Grove after a Townsville finale in which Matt Payne extended his points lead, while Kai Allen suffered a pit stop miscue.<\/p>\n<p>Allen finished seventh in the Townsville finale having lost time when released from his pit box with the left-front wheel not fully fastened.<\/p>\n<p>It was the latest pit lane miscue from the squad, which leads the teams\u2019 and drivers\u2019 championships thanks to a run of otherwise strong performances.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe understand the package, we understand what the car needs to perform, but we\u2019re not quite operationally where we need to be,\u201d Grove said on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMatt was the second fastest car in the lane [on Sunday] and Kai was probably one of the last.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have it in us but we\u2019re not doing it well enough and often enough and it\u2019s costing us results.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s not a secret in the team. We all know what we need to improve on and it\u2019s no shortage of hard work.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the higher up the grid you get, the more you\u2019re on show and some of the mistakes we\u2019re making are probably more public than what they would have been in previous years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe need to fix that, but they\u2019re nice growing pains. When you\u2019re doing a good job as a team, you\u2019re on show a bit more.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/speedcafe.com\/supercars-news-2026-townsville-500-race-3-results-brodie-kostecki-win-celebration-burnout-crash-video-reaction-comments\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kostecki wins Townsville finale, tags wall celebrating<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Groves took the teams\u2019 championship lead from Triple Eight in Darwin and was therefore at the top of pit lane for the first time in Townsville.<\/p>\n<p>There Payne overhauled Triple Eight spearhead Broc Feeney, turning a 10 point deficit into a 92 point lead by the end of the weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Asked if he feels any more pressure as the championship leader, Payne said: \u201cI don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur focus has always been on taking it race by race. We know our processes and we know what to focus on. I\u2019ve never really had too much of a look at the championship.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe try not to let that play in our heads too much and just focus on what we have to do and that\u2019s just execute and run through our processes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Grove Racing performing pit stop practice in Townsville. Image: InSyde Media That\u2019s the message from CEO Brenton Grove&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":798426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,151378,101817,806,805,803,804,12357,85],"class_list":["post-798425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-brenton-grove","tag-grove-racing","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-slot1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/798426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}