What happens when you combine a penchant for dominating road courses and a driver’s love for NASCAR? The answer is Shane van Gisbergen. Fans of the driver don’t need a reminder of his talents. Ever since he made the switch to NASCAR, his accolades say it all, and on top of that winning the 2023 Chicago Street Race on a drenched track was no easy feat. After all, even a final restart couldn’t stop SVG. And that was the pattern on road courses. At the Glen, the Kiwi driver put up a respectable second-place finish. It was essentially one foot put in the playoffs.
However, that doesn’t seem likely anymore. After the race at the Circuit of The Americas, SVG has NASCAR insiders doubting whether he can actually make the cut for the playoffs just based on his road course talent.
On the Teardown podcast, NASCAR insiders Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi discussed the V8 Supercars alumnus. As always, the #88 Trackhouse Racing driver was dubbed as the favorite to win. To be fair, he was performing very well on the track, and Gluck noted that van Gisbergen had the best tires compared to others.
Bianchi said on The Teardown, “That was all day. He struggled all day on restarts. Just could not get his car to go. This is a point we’re talking about. We both picked SVG to make the Playoffs, based off his road course prowess. He’s going to win one of these 5 regular season road course races. Today’s a perfect example. It’s almost fool’s gold. We did this with AJ Allmendinger a few years ago. You just don’t know, you can be as great as he is on road courses. Start off great, dominate Stage 1, and look like you’re going to control this race. Your car fades, other guys get better, get a bad set of tires, the car doesn’t restart. All of these things are going on.”
On the flip side of the coin, Bianchi observed that van Gisbergen was consistently struggling on the restarts. Although it was argued that he had fresher tires, Shane van Gisbergen was not happy with his final set. It also did not help his cause when he got mired in the middle of the pack and dropped for a while. However, the Kiwi driver regrouped and fought his way back up the field to restart in 6th. Unfortunately, he got bogged down on the restart yet again, and that was the end of that. But even outside these struggles with the tires, it was clear Gisbergen couldn’t keep up with drivers like Bell and Busch.
NASCAR driver Shane van Gisbergen
And it’s not just Bianchi questioning SVG. Even Richard Petty spoke about it earlier, with SVG’s advantage on road courses looking like it’s fading. “The glimmer on Shane van Gisbergen’s gold star is fading. We live in a time when data is an open book… Every team out there can look at his data.” While SVG brought his advantage from Supercars, it wouldn’t take too long for teams to look at his data, see. how he works the car to get the possible result.
That being said, the duo only have four chances left, as there are four regular-season road course races left. In other words, van Gisbergen and Allmendinger will be under a lot more pressure to win on a road course. The Circuit of The Americas is officially a lost opportunity. There are only two options available. Either try harder on the next road course or raise their game on ovals.
This isn’t the first time he squandered an opportunity
Jordan Bianchi also highlighted an incident from last year to back up the point. Back in 2024 at Watkins Glen, Shane van Gisbergen came ever so close to winning. Unfortunately, he made a mistake, and second-placed Chris Buescher capitalized to overtake and win.
He explained, “Go back to Watkins Glen last year. He was great, but he made a mistake. Buescher forced him into a mistake and he fumbled. That happens, but that just shows you how hard it is to win races. For these guys, they don’t have a 1 in 26 shot, they only have a 1 in 5 shot.”
The bottom line is that sometimes mistakes happen, and that just shows how hard it is to win races. Truthfully, the road course ringers just have five chances to reach the Playoffs. Especially when compared to other drivers who are competitive all throughout the regular season.
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