DURING a week where the ‘p-word’ was as prominent as it’s been in recent Supercars history, Garth Tander says Grove Racing made a deliberate effort not to buy into the saga.

Dissatisfaction from Ford and its homologation team boiled over at the Mountain, relating to the inability to usher through an altitude-related engine tweak.

Brodie Kostecki deplored Supercars’ parity process (and later became embroiled in a tense TV exchange with Mark Larkham) before Dick Johnson Racing unsuccessfully protested on the grounds of fairness, which it backed up by issuing a strongly worded statement.

Speed trap data in the dry consistently pointed to Chevrolet having an upper hand, at least in straight-line top-end, but once the heavens opened in yesterday’s race that was effectively nullified.

And so the Groves swooped, Matt Payne (aboard the #100 Penrite Mustang) outlasting fellow young guns James Golding and Cooper Murray to snatch his first Bathurst 1000 win – and Tander’s sixth.

“We just focused on our own race cars and our own team and our own strategy and did the best job we could,” Tander said of the Grove Racing approach to the parity tensions.

“I thought the team did an exceptional job post-Friday qualifying where we didn’t have the speed that we should have in qualifying and that was through no fault of Matt and Kai.

“So the team rebounded really nicely on Friday night, we had a really strong engineering meeting Friday night, and the cars were considerably better in race trim on Saturday and that gave us a really solid base to work from.

“At no point did any of the outside noise filter into our truck.”

And sure enough, Payne/Tander became the first combo to win the Great Race from 18th on the grid, while Kai Allen (with the help of co-driver Dale Wood) charged from 21st to eighth to secure his finals ticket.

Pic: Supplied/Mark Horsburgh

“Really, really proud of the team,” said Tander, who is a strategic advisor at Grove Racing in addition to his capacity as an enduro specialist.

“I’ve probably had more to do with this team with the helmet off than the helmet on than any other team I’ve been involved with.

“So it’s a very different feeling, a very special feeling.

“I couldn’t be prouder of Matt, the fact that he decided he was going to hang around the outside of the fastest corner in Australia in pouring rain to have a crack for the lead of the race – I was really, really proud of that.

“The fact that it didn’t quite work doesn’t matter, because Bathurst being Bathurst, you knew there was going to be a sting in the tail.”

The result represented Ford’s first Peter Brock Trophy success since 2019.