Optimism about this suitability for NASCAR was sensationally confirmed in 2023, when he won on his Cup Series in a one-off cameo appearance in Chicago for the sport\u2019s first-ever street race, which he backed up with a top-10 finish at the Indianapolis road course later that year.<\/p>\n
A year-long apprenticeship in the NASCAR junior series followed in 2024. The only non-American in the category, Van Gisbergen finished 12th in the championship as the second-best rookie courtesy of three victories.<\/p>\n
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Promotion to the senior Cup Series beckoned for 2025, and after a tough start comprising just one top-10 finish from the first 15 rounds, the 36-year-old came home strongly to qualify for the playoffs and finish the season 12th with five victories and the accolade of rookie of the year.<\/p>\n
Of course Van Gisbergen isn\u2019t the first Supercars driver to cross the Pacific with such intent. Marcos Ambrose is the prototype case, and SVG leant on the Tasmanian\u2019s knowledge during his Stateside transition.<\/p>\n
But the Kiwi has already racked up three times as many victories as Ambrose. With just one-full time campaign under his belt his unrealised potential is considerable.<\/p>\n
With tomorrow marking the two-year anniversary of Van Gisbergen\u2019s last Supercars race in Adelaide and his full-time switch to the American stock car racing scene, Australian-born NASCAR lead commentator Leigh Diffey tells Fox Sports that the Kiwi immediately caught the establishment\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe body of drivers and just the NASCAR Cup Series as a whole have an enormous amount of respect for Shane,\u201d he says<\/p>\n
\u201cThey started by having an amazing amount of respect for him when [Trackhouse Racing boss] Justin Marks had the foresight to bring him to Chicago and then it all went to plan and he won. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf it didn\u2019t go to plan, maybe we would never be talking about Shane van Gisbergen in NASCAR, but thankfully we are.<\/p>\n
\u201cPhase two was this year where he just absolutely knocked them dead in the road and street course races. The only one he didn\u2019t win was Circuit of the Americas. He\u2019s now had six NASCAR Cup Series wins and five this year, which was incredible. He\u2019s the best NASCAR Cup Series road racer, period.\u201d<\/p>\n
McLaren duo disqualified | 03:26<\/p>\n
But Diffey, who is returning to Australia as an ambassador of the Adelaide Grand Final this weekend, 27\u201330 November, said what came next, in the final half of this year, is what has most impressed.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople would say, \u2018This guy is the best I\u2019ve ever seen on a road or street course. He is the best\u2019. But then there was a part that they weren\u2019t talking about, and that was on ovals, because then they\u2019d say, \u2018Yeah, but he hasn\u2019t done anything on ovals. He\u2019s finished 33rd. He finished. 29th\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the last five weeks Shane has turned that ship around very, very effectively, and it\u2019s because he had the time to go back to these circuits.<\/p>\n
\u201cRemember last year he was racing in the Xfinity [development] series and doing guest spots in Cup. This year is his first full year in Cup, and he\u2019s been able to build a book with his engineers, build that package and in himself as a driver be able to go back to these tracks and say, \u2018I remember what I did wrong last time, this is what I\u2019m going to be better\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got the attention and the praise from some of my colleagues, like hall of famer Dale Jarrett, who says, \u2018This guy has learnt ovals very quickly\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Van Gisbergen\u2019s growing list of high points finishes at ovals are highlighted by a top-10 finish in Kansas City and top-15 results in Richmond, Talladega and Martinsville.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s put his rivals on notice ahead of his second full-time Cup Series campaign in 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cI often refer back many months to a statement by Kyle Larson, the now two-time Cup Series champion,\u201d Diffey says. \u201cHe said, \u2018If SVG learns how to drive ovals, we\u2019re in trouble\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe respect level for Shane has gone up even more than what it was, because he has shown them on a variety of ovals that he is now learning very rapidly how to drive, and he has fun.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has changed the way that he prepares for them. He\u2019s no longer really doing much sim. There\u2019s a lot of in-car-camera watching \u2014 he finds that more real and relatable \u2014 and whatever his program of learning is that he has implemented himself with his team, it\u2019s working on ovals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have to worry about Shane on road and street courses, but what he\u2019s done on ovals in this last five, six weeks has been remarkable, and I\u2019m really excited for him and really proud of him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If the worlds of Supercars and NASCAR are destined to grow closer, Shane van Gisbergen may go down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[2620,2095,174969,5888,64,63,689,5127,174966,174972,653,174556,2105,11288,9286,174965,12268,934,84690,174964,15142,13521,68175,174968,174548,36945,806,805,174975,803,804,2041,2067,677,174963,174971,29169,174974,6858,174961,174973,174976,174967,9909,174970,85,171756,174962,2614,4899],"class_list":["post-307610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-agence-france-presse","tag-america","tag-american-stock-car","tag-arizona","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-chicago","tag-dale-jarrett","tag-first-ever-street-race","tag-fox-sports-news","tag-geoff-smith","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-grand-final","tag-illinois","tag-in-car-camera-watching","tag-indiana","tag-indianapolis","tag-junior-series","tag-justin-marks","tag-kansas","tag-kansas-city","tag-kyle-larson","tag-leight-diffey","tag-luke-doherty","tag-marcos-ambrose","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport-category","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-north-america","tag-northern-america","tag-oceania","tag-one-full-time","tag-one-off-cameo-appearance","tag-phoenix","tag-prototype-case","tag-richmond","tag-road-course","tag-road-racer","tag-rookie-courtesy","tag-sean-gardner","tag-shane-van-gisbergen","tag-special-antipodean-talent","tag-sports","tag-street-course","tag-street-courses","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-virginia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}