GRM confirms Stanaway Sandown return 

Garry Rogers Motorsport has confirmed Richie Stanaway will return to the Supercars Championship grid at the Penrite Oil Sandown 500.

The Melbourne squad sensationally benched the driver prior to Sunday’s running at the Vodafone Gold Coast 600 for failing to attend a fan autograph session on the morning of the race.

In Stanaway’s absence Dylan O’Keeffe stepped in to fill the void alongside Chris Pither with the pair going on to finish the 300km heat in 18th position.

At the time it was unclear if Stanaway would see out the year with Rogers revealing in a video statement the pair would discuss the matter this week.

Speedcafe.com can confirm talks have been held this week, with team director Barry Rogers stating that the Kiwi is set to return to for the final two rounds at Sandown (November 8-10) and Newcastle (November 22-24).

“He will be (back in the car),” Rogers told Speedcafe.com.

“It is unfortunate how it played out with regards to it probably being so public, because that certainly isn’t Garry’s style and certainly not GRM’s style to probably have such public – I don’t know if it’s the right word, but… – persecution, but we like to get people, sit down quietly, and talk to them.

“We’re not ones that rant and rave and carry on at staff where it becomes a public issue, so that’s unfortunate from that point that that’s how the events unfolded, and for Richie, good on him, it would have been very difficult for him to accept the attention that sort of came about what we did. 

“The one thing with us is, (when) something’s dealt with, we move on, and we certainly have a lot of faith in Richie and his abilities. 

“We have only got two rounds to go and we haven’t achieved anything that either he would have liked to have achieved so far this season and from a GRM’s perspective we haven’t achieved anything we’d like to achieve.

“We’ve still got two cracks at it, and we’ll be head down and bum up to do our best at Sandown and then into Newcastle from there.”

After a wave of social media comments in the wake of decision directed at the both Stanaway and the team, Rogers has called for calm.  

“I know not everybody can sit down and talk to him and learn the sort of person he is, but he genuinely is a very, very good human being, and he has feelings and emotions, like every other person in the world,” he explained.

“Richie is a guy that got to a very high level of motorsport, as we all know, he’s very frustrated in probably what’s happened, but all I can say is, give the guy a bit of a break, and let’s hope at Sandown we can find something.”

Speedcafe.com has approached Stanaway for comment.