That’s been at the fore in the 200km Sunday races in recent rounds at Symmons Plains, Wanneroo Raceway and on the weekend at Hidden Valley.
Having won the Sunday race with the fastest car at Taupo, Matt Payne was a surprise winner in Tassie thanks to a call to tick off both pit stops under yellow flag conditions.
Over in the west, a decision to run Payne long in the middle stint following a bungled first pit stop allowed Payne to benefit from a late yellow – vaulting him onto the podium.
Hidden Valley provided a somewhat new challenge as a breakout weekend for rookie Kai Allen meant the team had two front-runners to manage.
The two cars started the 70-lap race on the third row of the grid and were given greatly offset strategies, Payne in on lap 15 and 47 and Allen on laps 38 and 59.
Going early on the first stop allowed Payne to undercut those directly ahead, while the opposite approach for Allen opened the possibility of benefiting from any yellows.
As the race ran green for its duration the strategies converged on track with five laps remaining, when Payne left the door open at Turn 1 to let the faster Allen through.
Describing having two front-running cars as a strategic advantage due to the ability to deploy alternate strategies, team boss David Cauchi said planning and communication was key.
“The end was pretty straight forward really,” he said.
“We had conversations before the race, we communicate very openly and clearly, the guys know where they stand.
“We’re all about the team first, we’re only interested in getting the best result for the team overall and that’s what we did.”
Cauchi credited Grove’s engineering team – led by technical director Grant McPherson and race engineers Jack Bell (Payne) and Alistair McVean – for their strategy efforts.
“It’s not something that’s easy to get right and it just goes to show the engineering team who are the guys who come up with these things, they’re working cohesively,” Cauchi continued.
“It’s really easy to trip up on yourselves, especially when you’ve got two cars starting on the same row, the drivers have to do their bit on track.
“But we’re seeing even Formula 1 teams with hundreds of people, we see them almost quite regularly stuff it up, so it’s really pleasing for me to see the way the team is working.
“That’s the guys that we have, Jack, Alistair and Shippy, they’re the main leaders of these conversations and those strategy calls and they’ve been doing an exceptional job.”
Now in its fourth season under the guidance of former Triple Eight stalwart Cauchi, it’s clear Grove Racing is no longer in a building phase and that it’s time to deliver.
Payne has already won twice this season, has scored six podiums from the last 12 races and sits third in the championship, behind only the two Triple Eight drivers.
Allen has meanwhile rocketed from 17th to 12th in the standings in the wake of Darwin and is now just 43 points adrift of the 10th place Finals cut-off.
“We’re not quite there yet, but if Kai keeps delivering results like that and the team, then absolutely our goal is to have both drivers in the championship fight,” said Cauchi.
“That’s what we all want. We’re very clear we’re here to fight for championships and to have two shots at it is a lot better than one, so we’re definitely going to focus on that.”
There are three Sprint Cup and two Endurance Cup events before the Finals, with Payne and Allen to be joined by Garth Tander and Dale Wood respectively for the co-driver events.
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