Latest / Full Credit to the Noise / NEWS: GM’s Matt Payne NASCAR play explained
Transcript
- Speedcafe Team: Hello and welcome to Full Credit to the News brought to you by Authentic Collectibles. My name is Andrew Van Lewen and I'm joined by Speed Cafe's managing editor, Stefan Bartholomeyus. Stefan, it's turned into a pretty juicy week on the news front. It has. One story in particular is going to give us plenty to discuss on this news pod. Yep, let's ⁓ let's ⁓ unpack this Matt Payne NASCAR scenario because there's a bit going on there. I'll start by just sort of going over the situation. So Matt Payne was reportedly offered a seat with Richard Childress Racing for the Sonoma round of the NASCAR Cup Series, driving a Chevrolet Camaro. He requested permission from Grove Racing, his supercars team, which, as we know, runs Ford Mustangs in supercars to take up the RCR offer. And that request was probably predictably denied. What makes this really interesting is what's happening in the background here with GM looking to lure Payne to its supercar stable as soon as next year, despite him being contracted to Groves until the end of 2027. We know there's this battle between the Pay Grove camps happening in the background. We know that an exit from the team is highly inevitable, whether it's at the end of this season or next. But Stefan, let's start with the NASCAR offer itself, because very quickly there was a A cynical view from some out there regarding its legitimacy. I mean, the Groves were highly unlikely to ever say yes to this deal. So it's obviously an easy offer for GM or for anyone to make, knowing that you don't really have to go through with facilitating it. But there's also a pretty solid theory or some pretty good mail out there that this wasn't a wildcard ride. It was a replacement for the late Kyle Bush in the RCR lineup for that event. That's important to note because a wildcard ride would require. require funding, you know, half a million, six hundred grand, something like that. And that would seem like a big stretch for a manufacturer that we believe spends less than half a million on its entire homologation team deal with Team 18. But if it was the Bush seat that was on offer, then it would be a fund to drive and not requiring that outlay. So that that to me adds a bit of credibility to this idea, Stefan. What do you think? ⁓ I've got no doubt it was a credible and genuine offer. It certainly wasn't a ⁓ a PR stunt. This ⁓ Matt Payne GM deal is about him becoming a factory driver and yes he would be in team eighteen in supercars initially but it's about creating pathways for him overseas and I understand there was actually two offers that ⁓ were put to Groves and both knocked back. The first one was a fully GM funded ride in the O'Reilly series at Sonoma. And then three days later, the Pain Camp came back to Groves with this RCR Cup series drive for Sonoma that you mentioned. So clearly there's there was a desire from GM to run Matt at Sonoma. They've obviously those guys over there have seen what Shane Van Gisbergen's done. So it wouldn't ⁓ be a hugely left field idea to pluck a tall Kiwi out of supercars and expect him to go pretty good on a on a NASCAR road course. But as you also flag, surely they knew it was pretty cheeky and unlikely to be approved. But I think also from a from a GM Australia perspective, they'd want to be destabilizing any of these Ford Supercars teams they can at the moment as part of this war that's going on down here, so they probably didn't mind that it leaked out. Well, as part of the sort of leaking out of the information, there's been this I don't know if accusation is too strong a word, but talk about Matt having gone to the States and used GM's simulator and whether that breaches his contract or whether it could be construed as a breach of of contract. ⁓ what I can reveal here is that Matt did head to the States after the Christchurch Super 440. He took part in what was effectively a driver development camp run by Josh Wise. Now Josh is one of the top elite driver developers. In the States and heavily involved on the NASCAR scene. He does have ties to GM, but he also runs his own business Wise optimization, which was engaged by Matt for this US program as a personal development exercise. It would have involved simulator use. I can't say for sure whose simulator it was, but Wise does operate out of Charlotte in North Carolina, as pretty much the entire NASCAR world does, including the manufacturers. I guess Stefan we're dealing with semantics here, but is the suggestion that he's operated outside of his contract too strong? Well, we don't have enough details to be able to say that. You do point out that this Josh Wise program runs out of Charlotte. I read that it runs out of the GM Tech Center, which ⁓ is an interesting ⁓ addition to that. But ⁓ yeah, I guess only the Pain Camp really knows the exact details of what went on, but ⁓ Josh's whole program is pretty closely linked there with GM. Yeah, it's interesting. It's it's starting to really feel like the ball is well and truly rolling on the contract exit negotiations. That's my sort of read on what's come out ⁓ you know, in the last couple of days. And as each day goes by, I do feel more and more like we could see that exit come at the end of this season rather than the end of the actual contract. period. That's just a gut feel on the way things are playing out. Where does it kind of sit for you? Well, I mean, as of right now, the Groves are still clearly sticking to their guns. They have a contract with Matt for twenty twenty seven. There's no debating that. And you look at it at the moment, it's not all of this noise isn't actually hurting his results on the racetrack. No. You going off what he's doing right now, they could still win a championship together, even though There's ⁓ obviously going to be an exit at some point. So I think that's that's an interesting part. But overall, yeah, I mean, I'm probably 50 50 on it at the moment. I sort of agree with you that it feels like something could happen for next year. Drivers normally end up where they want to work, one way or another. It's just a matter of what unlocks it. And we've seen in recent years, I mean, you know, Will Brown got out of his Erebus deal. that Erebus or Betty Klamenko just let him go. I certainly don't see Groves giving up on ⁓ on this by any stretch. And then you look at the Shane Van Gisburg and triple eight scenario where he had to buy his way out of that deal to go off to NASCAR. But again, money's not really the issue for Groves here. I don't see it. If it was that simple that would have already been done. So for Groves it's about winning and it's about Is there another driver option for them in 2027 that they could put in as an equal to to Matt Payne if they had that ready to go? I feel like that would be the key to actually unlocking this. Yeah, I definitely agree on that. And we'll talk about that in a moment. But it is always one of those things where, you know, you expect one side of the debate, and in this case the Grove and let's say let's lump forward into that as as well, sort of saying, Well, there's no way out of this contract. That's what everyone always says until there is a way out of it, right? Like that's just how it does it does play out because it is a negotiation and it is, as you flag, about who's going to pay for what in terms of an exit if it's going to happen. And that's where it's easy to get drawn into the idea of well, how does he possibly leave if the team aren't going to let him? But that is what the line is until that line gets crossed and the exit gets agreed to. And in the meantime, you've got David Reynolds sitting there at Team 18, out of contract. It's sure it's only June, but ⁓ yeah, it can't be a comfortable situation for him. Yeah, no, I'm sure he's a very interested observer in all of this, given I mean, his future's ended up tied to these negotiations because, you know, he's he's doing a good job on track this year, but we know that this is the direction that team eighteen want to go for their future. ⁓ Adrian Burgess has said before, if we need to make tough decisions that are more forward looking, we will do that. At the same time, if team 18 needs to just wait one season to get hold of Matt, then Dave is the logical driver to keep in that seat in the interim. So he's kind of it felt last year that, you know, his future was in his hands, whereas now it feels like his future's kind of out of his hands. He's doing a serviceable job on track, no issues there, but it might not really matter. Yeah, well it's out of his hands and it's I would say it's out of team eighteen's hands as well. Because Groves have a contract with the driver they want. Yeah. The the other really big question, Mark, and you you touched on it a moment ago, is what Grove Racing does in its post Matt Payne era, whether that's next season or the one after. ⁓ they've got some very speedy race cars. It's an absolute top race winning seat. There was a bit of talk about Will Brown maybe going there for a while. That's been pretty strongly denied by Triple Eight in terms of there being any sort of plan to to sub Will out. ⁓ the name Cam Waters does keep coming up. It's an interesting prospect, that one, because you'd think it would be an enticing change of scenery for Cam, but he's also contracted to Tickford for next season, having s finally made a commitment to that team not that long ago and signed a multi year deal. Any thoughts on how that could all play out? Well, again, that plays directly into the conversation around is there an option for twenty seven or is there nothing really open to the groves until twenty eight? So if there's a conversation that gets had with Cam Waters, can he get out of his Tickford thing a year early? Does he wait another year? Does he want to do it? We don't know any of that, but certainly there's going to be a lot more people coming off contract for twenty eight. So obviously poaching a star like that. would be one of their options to go with Kai Allen who's who's clearly ⁓ put some runs on the board but he's still pretty green. Or Groves could do what they've done before with Kai and and with Matt and try to develop ⁓ their own next young gun. But again, they'd probably want to run him in Super Two next year if they were going down that path and actually sort of create the stepping stone into the into the main game in twenty eight. So yeah, do they go another way and And recall a veteran. Obviously, they've got Will Davison and Tim Slade on their enduro roster. I don't really see them going that way. The ultimate sort of wild card is if they went for an international, which we know obviously they've done for enduro's in the past. They love somebody like a Matt Campbell, but we know he's not going to be coming down here full-time. He's just about to be announced in Ford's Hypercar program. So I I feel like the thing with Groves is they could do something left field, but at the moment, there doesn't appear to be an option to just sub in for next season. Yep, it's all very interesting and it's going to be fascinating to see how it plays out over the remainder of the silly season. All right, a bit of news from our good friends at Authentic Collectibles. They are excited to announce their second range of 2026 Supercars models featuring six Ford Mustangs across 118 and 143 scale, leading the release are two special Penwright racing models. Funnily enough, ⁓ Matt Payne's number 19 Ford Mustang, ⁓ celebrating his dominant double victory at the ITM Christchurch Super 440, while teammate Kai Allen's number 26 Mustang commemorates his maiden Supercars Championship race win at that same circuit. ⁓ both cars feature the eye catching black and gold fern-inspired New Zealand livery. Continuing the New Zealand theme is Thomas Randall's Castro back Tickford Racing number 55 Mustang raced in its striking silver fern livery at the Taupo Super 440. Joining it is Randall's standard 2026 season entry Mustang, with the pair representing one of Ford's most recognizable teams. Collectors can also add the rookie season model of Rising Star Ryland Gray's Shell V Power Racing Team number 38, Ford Mustang. Completing the range is Will Brown's Red Bull Ampole Racing Triple Eight Ford Mustang from the 2026 Melbourne Super Sprint. That model celebrates Brown's race seven pole position and the first pole for the famous Triple Eight entries since 2018. Pre-order at your local stockist or head over to Authentic Collectibles website to register your interest. Authentic Collectibles driven by passion, made for collectors. I see authentics are also drip feeding the reveal of these latest Track Stars cars. They're ⁓ one sixty-fourths, which ⁓ there's always something exciting popping up in the social feed every day at the moment. That's ⁓ that's the sort of stuff that gets your attention, isn't it, Stefan? You're into ⁓ there may be a couple of those on my desk. That's why ⁓ that's why it's on the brain. I believe you're ⁓ I think you pay about as much for authentic collectibles collectibles bottles as I do, which is ⁓ not very much thanks to our very good friend Will Hall. All right, let's move on to the Adelaide Grand Final. We've been talking about this for a couple of weeks now. And this plan to expand the speedway portion of the event over two weekends that appears to now be on ice with the speedway to be held entirely within the Adelaide Grand Final event event dates. It does feel like there's obviously been just so much kind of talk about that event and and ⁓ the expansion for this year, but then the Moto GP track build, and there's sort of two totally different Issues, but there's all this pressure coming from local councils and people about tree removal and butterfly conservation and things like that around the Moto GP track build, that it just feels like maybe it all made this additional speedway weekend, although completely unrelated, a tough thing to get across the line to the public. There's a bit of ⁓ butterfly bingo going on at the moment. I feel like you ⁓ throw that in somewhere every episode if you also put a drive-by on Fernando Alonso will have the double. But yeah, obviously there's there's a lot going on in this space at the moment and there's ⁓ a lot of friction between the SA government and the Adelaide City Council on the back of all this. I mean Peter Malinowskus the Premier has has come out and said the the council's just against the Moto GP and it's trying to undermine it. ⁓ but really it's just in this awkward place at the moment where The government needs to actually put forward the plan so that there's facts out there. They need to obviously finish devising the plan and then communicate it because there's this sort of information void that's just being filled with with guesswork. I mean the the ⁓ the mayor was saying yesterday, like, ⁓ we believe there's gonna be two hundred trees knocked out for this Motor G P track and I don't know where the number really comes from because it hasn't actually been been put out there yet. So yeah, it's it's not in a great place at the moment and ⁓ yeah maybe this ⁓ second weekend of speedway for the grand final was just ⁓ a bit too much. Yeah, it does feel like it all got lumped into one thing even though they were totally sort of separate things. And ⁓ obviously yeah, we we see that local council slash city council versus state government and what they want to achieve from a major events thing. Like it's the same thing here in Perth, right? Like it's very similar to what's kind of going on in terms of the Burzwood track build and and the fact that local councils surrounding that area don't seem to love the idea, but the state government has committed to it and tipped a and and is willing to tip a heap of money into it because it it has a broader view of what it sort of provides from a ⁓ from an events and a and a local economy ⁓ standpoint. So it's not a it's not an unusual problem, but it's a it's a weird thing when you sort of s see local officials coming together well not coming together, actually not coming together about something that ⁓ has already been announced to the world. In terms of the motor GP thing. But ⁓ on the speedway side for the grand final, so they've announced four days now of of speedway will be ⁓ part of that that event. So they're still upping the game in terms of ⁓ how much dirt action's gonna be ⁓ seen in the Adelaide Parklands. Yep, and that is I reckon always good news. Let's finish up with some F1. Chat, of course, the F1 Circus continues with the Barcelona Grand Prix this weekend, but it's engines that have been in the news once again, starting with the somewhat bizarre scenario where the new Aduo rules, now Aduo means additional development and upgrade opportunities. And effectively that was kind of a parity system put in place this year with this major shift in the in the power units to allow any power unit manufacturers that were kind of left behind at the start of the season to catch up. So they've created a a a system that allows upgrades to engines to try and level the playing field, knowing that there was going to be manufacturers that were going to come out of the blocks faster than others. But this matrix or this formula has determined that it's not the all-conquering Mercedes power unit that's the best on the grid. It's actually the Red Bull Ford engine that's the benchmark. So Mercedes is actually going to get one of these Aduo upgrades along with Ferrari and the rest of them. Now, this is based on Aduo being judged solely on the internal combustion portion of the drivetrain, but it still just makes absolutely zero sense. And Stefan, I reckon the optics on this are just horrible. Well, the the part to me that makes zero sense is the whole performance and the whole sport at the moment is is being driven by this harvesting and deployment. But they've based this system as you said, entirely off the ICU. So it it seems incredibly complex, but it's actually far too simple. Yeah. If you if you look at it that way. It's not actually taking into account all those other performance factors. So it's bizarre. There's also no real transparency on the measurements involved here, even with the teams, 'cause they don't want the teams to be able to try to game the system and design things based on not tripping this this program. But Clearly, it's a blow for Red Bull and Ferrari that ⁓ we're hoping to use this system to catch up to what is a clearly superior Mercedes power unit, but ⁓ just going off the ICU, the Mercedes didn't come out on top. It's ⁓ geez, it'd be interesting if Christian Horner was still running Red Bull, wouldn't it? Just in terms of the way he would tackle this whole thing, because we know that ⁓ Loren Mekis is kind of you know, he's more of a backroom player than a front foot. media facing performer. But geez, it'd be interesting to see how Christian would have reacted to this happening. Well, I'm sure there'll still be ⁓ plenty of ⁓ fallout from it. This is pretty fresh. So ⁓ they've got a Grand Prix coming up this weekend. I'm sure there'll be plenty of talk about it. But the whole the whole concept, it just doesn't sit right with me either that this is Formula One. Like this is this is real socialist motor racing here where they they deem someone's behind and then give them ⁓ all these things to to help catch up. I mean they've they've got the power cap numbers in there, they've got a spending cap, they've got a development hours cap. Like man, there's there's a lot of things going on there that doesn't feel like Formula One. See, this is the Stefan Bingo car, the socialist motors for it. So you've got ⁓ you've got one of your favorites in there as well. Now now speaking of those engine rules, we do have or appear to have at least some clarity On what changes will be made beyond the end of this season. Obviously, this these new rules with their 50-50 electric and ⁓ ICE split have proven hugely unpopular. ⁓ but a move to make a reasonably significant change for next season couldn't get across the line in terms of manufacturer support. So instead we move to a 58-42 split next season for an additional 20 kilowatts output from the ICE and a 5% increase in fuel flow. And then another 30 kilowatts on top of that on the ICE and a 13% fuel flow increase for 2028, which will hit the preferred 6040 split that ⁓ everyone was sort of well, not everyone obviously, but ⁓ was the kind of the aim for for next year. So that'll now be delayed until 2028. It appears Audi was heavily involved in the slowing down of the introduction of the 6040 split, which given we kind of ended up here with these rules due to pandering to get out of involved in the sport in the first place, it's kind of tough for them on the optics front as well. Well, I don't know if this is optics or ⁓ or not, but ⁓ I just realized I was saying ICU instead of ⁓ ICE. So ⁓ sorry to anyone who thought ⁓ I was putting anyone in an intensive care unit there. But ⁓ yeah again like ⁓ this is ⁓ half of this doesn't sound like actual English this this whole deal. Obviously it's hard to change things once they're in play. So they've been able to get four of six manufacturers they needed to to sign off on this compromised ⁓ sort of rollout for the next two years. As a fan, you go, it feels like it's going in the right direction, but it's it's a shame that it's not a bit more aggressive. It's not gonna be fixed faster. And I thought it was interesting in the FIA statement. They said the aim was to make qualifying more flat out. while not impacting the positive and exciting racing generated by the new regulations. So that is a real lean into the idea that the yo-yo racing is actually good for the sport. Yeah. Yep. It is. Yeah, it's interesting. It's interesting. I'd still I I see some benefits to it, but it just feels like the, like you say, the the right direction was to push down this 60-40 path for for next year. But it is the It's the game you play when you have manufacturers involved. And I guess there is an argument if you ⁓ on the Audi board that you've spent a heck of a lot of money to kind of build this ⁓ this engine program from scratch and then to have to make significant changes just a year in might not sit great, but ultimately, you know, we need this sport to be leveraging its global popularity, not putting itself at risk of of losing losing that audience because the product isn't satisfactory. And now we'll see how much of this A D U O E I E I O system they'll ⁓ they'll unpick based on the fact that the rules are changing twice in the next two years. Well, I I think that was a big part of it as well. I believe Ferrari was another manufacturer not overly keen on huge changes for next year based on the fact that they they really felt there was a good Aduo free kick coming their way with the current regulations. So that's complicated the whole thing ⁓ as well. ⁓ as much as ⁓ just the term Aduo is complicating enough. I'm not surprised you got an acronym wrong before because that I'd said it I'd said Aduo about seven times by that point. So I'd appreciate that your brain probably was was ⁓ going a bit haywire by that point. Anyway, on that note, I think that will do us for this week. There is a huge weekend of motorsport coming up with the Barcelona Grand Prix, Le Mon Speed Series from Queensland Raceway, and we will have it all covered at Speed Cafe. So stay tuned to the website. For everything you need to know from all those corners of the world and full credit to the noise, we'll be back in this podcast feed on Tuesday morning.