{"id":512488,"date":"2026-07-06T14:19:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T14:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/512488\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T14:19:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T14:19:15","slug":"supercars-news-overseas-talent-in-grove-racings-contingency-plans-for-matt-payne-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/512488\/","title":{"rendered":"Supercars news: Overseas talent in Grove Racing\u2019s \u2018contingency plans\u2019 for Matt Payne exit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/019-Payne-EV03-26-MH6_1319-1-2000x1200-1.jpg\" alt=\"Overseas talent in Grove\u2019s \u2018contingency plans\u2019 for Payne exit\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGrove Racing driver Matt Payne. Image: Mark Horsburgh<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.supercheapauto.com.au\/catalogue-out-now\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1036058 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SCA-1196-Wk1-Cat-BPO-Speedcafe_728x90.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"728\" height=\"90\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A move to Team 18 has long been tabled by General Motors to bolster its Supercars talent pool.<\/p>\n<p>After months of speculation, <a href=\"https:\/\/speedcafe.com\/supercars-news-2026-matt-payne-grove-racing-future-statement-2027-decision-comments-reaction-gm-chevrolet-ford-team-18\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the young New Zealander finally committed himself to Grove Racing<\/a> through 2027 to the end of his contract.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInternally, I think nothing has changed,\u201d said Grove on Seven\u2019s Supercars Preview Show.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe knew where we were and everybody has been on the same page.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHopefully, from a media and external perspective, it kind of quietens down a little bit, but nothing has changed for us.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re here to win races, we have two fantastic drivers we\u2019ve signed for a long time because we want them driving our cars.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMatt\u2019s statement reiterated that and we\u2019re excited to go to Townsville, which has been a pretty good hunting ground for us in the past and hopefully back up what we did in Darwin.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Signing with General Motors and Team 18 seems an inevitability, in any case.<\/p>\n<p>Grove said that while he is not looking too far into the future, the team is already considering overseas options and local talent in the event that Payne does depart.<\/p>\n<p>The team has not shied away from international drivers. It employed the services of Porsche ace Kevin Estre in 2023 and has connections to other drivers by way of its Bathurst 12 Hour programs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s going to be challenging for Matt to go. We\u2019re not focused yet on who the next driver is,\u201d said Grove.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur job is to try to win races and championships with Matt.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, we would be silly not to have contingency plans, and we have multiple people on the spectrum from Super2 drivers to people overseas to people within the sport.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe also are lucky we have two of the fastest cars and we have a lot of people that want to drive for our team.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s definitely no shortage of people that have reached out if there was a seat available, but we have the two drivers we want in the car and we want to win championships.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Overseas opportunities have been offered to Payne by GM.<\/p>\n<p>One of those \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/speedcafe.com\/supercars-news-2026-nascar-matthew-payne-chevrolet-grove-racing-contract-sonoma-rcr\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a NASCAR Cup Series cameo at Sonoma with Richard Childress Racing<\/a> \u2013 nearly materialised this year until it was blocked by Grove Racing.<\/p>\n<p>The door may also open to sports car racing. GM has entries in the FIA World Endurance Championship and IMSA SportsCar Championship by way of Cadillac.<\/p>\n<p>Grove said that racing overseas was a point of interest when Payne came onboard with the Supercars squad.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cObviously it (General Motors\u2019 approach) happened last year. We saw it come out in the media that it was looking like Matt was wanting to go and do something different,\u201d said Grove.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat was always a discussion for us since we signed Matt, when he first started with us, that he has ambitions to go overseas.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere was no fixed timeline on that and it seems like through a few people in the background this has started to build momentum.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur relationship with Matt has been great the whole time. Obviously GM are trying to fix some challenges they have and Team 18 are the same.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI understand why it\u2019s happening, people are trying to take a very strong driver to bolster their team.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe obviously had Shippy (Grant McPherson) get poached [by] GM as well. We understand the business of motorsport, but we\u2019ve also been around a while.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have very good contracts, we understand what we\u2019re doing, and Matt needs to see out his agreement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s nice that that\u2019s out in the public as well, but I don\u2019t see the story going or this narrative stopping for the rest of his term with us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Payne heads to the NTI Townsville 500 second in the Supercars drivers\u2019 championship just 15 points behind Triple Eight\u2019s Broc Feeney.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Grove Racing driver Matt Payne. Image: Mark Horsburgh A move to Team 18 has long been tabled by&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[116483,28872,111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-512488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-brenton-grove","tag-grove-racing","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}