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Tander has now become the latest high-profile defector from the General Motors camp to the Blue Oval with a deal to join Grove Racing as a mentor and endurance driver for 2023.
The move to a Ford Mustang followed a career at the top level of the Australian racing car tour behind the wheel of Holdens.
That Tander has never raced a Ford in Supercars is true, the West Australian debuted for Holden squad Garry Rogers Motorsport in 1998 and has remained loyal to the red side of the divide ever since.
However, the Blue Oval is not entirely foreign to Tander, even if you discount his successful Formula Ford career that resulted in an Australian Championship in 1997.
Tander actually cut his first ever Supercars lap driving the Glenn Seton Racing-built EL Ford Falcon at Wanneroo Raceway in 1997.
The car is owned by Perth-based privateer Claude Giorgi who unleashed Tander for around 20 laps of his home circuit in preparation for the upcoming test with Dick Johnson Racing.
The following week Tander completed around 30 laps in a DJR Falcon at Mallala before that test was rained out.
Tander would go on to get a chance at GRM for the 1998 Supercars season which began a Supercars career that became a Holden legend.
He spent seven years at GRM, the highlight of which was an impressive Bathurst 1000 win in 2000 sharing with Jason Bargwanna.
In 2005 Tander strengthened his ties with Holden when he moved to the HSV Dealer Team which ran out of the same Walkinshaw operation that fielded the Holden Racing Team entries.
In 2007 he won the Supercars title for HSVDT which led to a promotion to full factory driver with HRT from 2008 onwards.
Tander remained with HRT until 2016, its final year as a factory Holden team, taking more wins at Bathurst in 2009 and 2011.
After a two-year return to GRM, he further etched his name into Holden’s history books with Holden’s final factory win at Bathurst in 2020 and Holden’s final Bathurst win in 2022, each alongside Shane van Gisbergen and Triple Eight.
Tander will make his first competitive appearance in a Ford Supercar at the Sandown 500 next September.
His Ford debut would come at the same time that Walkinshaw Andretti United, which ran HSVDT and HRT, made its own switch from GM hardware to the Ford Mustang.
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