SHANE van Gisbergen overcame a rollercoaster of a day in Atlanta to secure his career-best finish in the NASCAR Cup Series, claiming sixth despite a pair of spins in a hectic race, which propelled the Kiwi into the top-16 in the standings.
The result comes after improved showings on ovals in recent times, with his front-running form at the tail end of the 2025 season rewarded with only a 10th-place finish at Kansas.
Kicking off 2026, he showed his prowess in wet conditions at Bowman Gray Stadium’s Clash, where he led the race before being spun out.
Ditto in the Daytona 500 – he led the blue riband race before being taken out in the ‘big one’, after finishing sixth in his qualifying Duel.
The result steadies the ship for van Gisbergen in the point standings, where he now finds himself in 16th, as the title reverts to the top-16 Chase format for the new season, which cuts off after 26 races.
The elevation is a dramatic improvement after being mired in 28th place post-Daytona.
And in more good news, next week the series moves to van Gisbergen’s preferred road courses, with the annual visit to the Circuit of the Americas in Texas, having been unbeaten in the past five Cup Series visits to the track genre.
“It’s just points accumulation this year for us, we just need to be scoring points each week, it’s good to get that underway now, we’ll be in the second (qualifying) group next week, which really helps, being in a good qualifying group on the road course,” said van Gisbergen to Frontretch.
“Feeling good, we’ve got some good momentum. I felt like we were really promising last week, too.”
After practice and qualifying in Atlanta were washed out, the handling of the Red Bull Chevrolet proved somewhat recalcitrant in the early stages.
However, as the car improved, he was racing for a top-three position at the end of stage two, a failed block from reigning Cup Series champion Kyle Larson sent the Kiwi for a lurid slide through the infield.
After working his way back into the lead pack, he spun again unassisted.
Then, neat work by the Trackhouse Racing team put him back into contention, running as high as fourth on the last lap, after earlier being credited with leading a lap.
“I’m not sure if (Larson) was trying to block me or he just got loose, I couldn’t miss him and tripped through the grass,” said van Gisbergen.
“That was at the end of the stage, right, everyone was pushing hard trying to get a point, so it’s a bit of a shame.
“And then it wasn’t too bad, but the next time I went through the grass, I was just getting looser and looser.
“I tried to rebalance the car on the bottom and burn the right front a bit, but it didn’t work, and I just sort of got sucked around by the outside cars.
“That damaged it again, the guys did a great job rebalancing it, and the pace at the end was really good.”
Neil Crompton takes the Supra Supercar for a spin!
Supercars Hall of Fame member Neil Crompton puts the new Toyota Supra Supercar through its paces.