Bathurst winners David Reynolds and Garth Tander join forces for 2023 enduros

Combining for six Bathurst wins, David Reynolds and Garth Tander will form the most experienced pairing on the Supercars grid when the tackle this weekend’s Sandown 500.

Bathurst winner David Reynolds will be armed with the “best co-driver” he’s had when he joins forces for an endurance season assault with five-time Mount Panorama champion Garth Tander, starting in this weekend’s Sandown 500.

Grove Racing scored a co-driver coup when it snared Tander in the off-season from Triple Eight for this year’s enduros and teamed him up with Reynolds to form the most experienced pairing on the Supercars grid.

Tander made the shock call to leave his plum role as Shane van Gisbergen’s co-driver at the end of last year after the pair won its second Bathurst 1000 crown together in 2022.

The victory put Tander in elite company as a five-time winner of the Great Race.

He now joins forces with 2017 Bathurst winner Reynolds to combine for six Bathurst 1000 wins and 39 starts in the biggest race of the year.

Reynolds said Tander was a huge asset, rating him as one of the top two co-drivers in the field alongside seven-time series champion Jamie Whincup, who will drive with young gun Broc Feeney.

“He (Tander) is a very smart individual, very articulate at his job and I love having him beside me, he is probably the best co-driver I’ve had,” Reynolds said.

“He and Whincup are probably the two most experienced (co-drivers) out there.

“I’m so happy to have him in my car because I know when I put him in, he is going to be as good as anyone else out there.

“Actually, he will be better than everyone else out there, hopefully. But it’s up to us to make our car better than everyone else, and that’s the hardest part of our game is to make our car better than everyone else.”

Grove Racing drivers Kevin Estre, Matt Payne, David Reynolds and Garth Tander. The Penrite cars will feature a special tribute livery paying homage to racing legend Allan Moffat for the Sandown 500.

Reynolds is focused on ending his tenure at Grove Racing, which will feature a special livery paying homage to racing legend Allan Moffat at Sandown, on a high before he makes the switch to Team 18 from next season.

While Reynolds admitted it had been a tough year for the Fords, he said the endurance season presented a new opportunity to challenge.

“We’re in a Ford, which hasn’t been the best performing car over the year, but the endurance season doesn’t really matter – it rewards the team that makes the least amount of mistakes and has the best strategy,” Reynolds said.

“You do need raw speed, but it’s not only raw speed that gets you there at the end.

“That’s what I love about the endurance season, you can have two strong drivers, a really strong team and good strategy and you can still win races out of that.

“It’s the best time of the year to be a racing driver.”

Tander, who also teamed with van Gisbergen to win at Bathurst in 2020, had no doubt the pair could be a threat at Sandown and Mount Panorama.

“Clearly Dave is fast, we know that, no problems at all. His qualifying speed is exceptional,” Tander said.

“We’ve got just as good a shot as anyone to have success … I’m more than confident that we can be among it.”

Shane van Gisgergen and Garth Tander celebrate at Bathurst in 2022

A Holden driver throughout his career in Supercars, Tander’s co-driving role at Grove Racing will have him line-up in a Ford for the first time.

“It seems to me like everyone is making a bigger deal out of it than I am,” Tander said.

“History doesn’t lie, every single one of my race starts in Supercars – to this point still – is in a Holden or GM product. But there is no more Holden and that’s the reality, you can’t drive for a brand that doesn’t exist anymore.

“When Steven and Brenton Grove spoke to me about joining the team, the fact that they were a Ford team was about fifth or sixth down the ladder as far as where the level of importance stood.

“I’m excited that I finally am driving a Ford. Obviously, it’s a different fan base, working for a different manufacturer, how they go about business, it’s all very different. It’s a great opportunity for me as well.”

Tander said it was a hard call to walk away from his successful partnership with van Gisbergen, but his new role opened up more opportunities for him at Grove.

“It was (a hard call) and a lot of people at the time said I was probably a bit crazy at the time to do so,” he said.

“I probably knew a little bit more than a few other people did earlier about what was going to play out over the next 12 months (van Gisbergen’s foray into NASCAR) and then the opportunity that was given me to join this team was too good to pass up.

“In reality, I thought I had one more year left with Shane and as it turned out that was true and that was all I was passing up, whereas the future opportunities I have with Grove Racing are much greater and I did not want to let that slide.”

The Grove Racing cars will feature a special one-off livery for the Sandown 500, recognising Moffat as part of a partnership with Dementia Australia, for which Moffat, is a patron.

The Penrite Racing cars will sport a livery based on Moffat’s 1979 XC Federation Falcon. It will feature on both the Reynolds-Tander and the Matt Payne-Kevin Estre cars.

Originally published as Bathurst winners David Reynolds and Garth Tander join forces for 2023 enduros