Listen to PIT TALK here<\/a>.<\/p>\nThough it was only his first win of the season, it was his seventh victory on a road or street course and his sixth win from the last seven road or street events.<\/p>\n
It puts the Kiwi near the top of the street course victory leaderboard in NASCAR, with only four-time champion Jeff Gordon (nine wins from 47 starts) and three-time title winner Tony Stewart (eight wins from 24 starts) ahead of him on the list.<\/p>\n
But with only 14 street-course starts, van Gisbergen ranked comfortably first in percentage terms, with a 50 per cent strike rate.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Watkins Glen] is a really big, fast, flowing racetrack,\u201d Skaife explained. \u201cIf you think about the skill and you think about the cars moving around quite a lot, they\u2019re not really as aero sensitive as they are, say, on a big fast oval.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese sorts of corners and the way that he drives the car, it absolutely suits him, and he\u2019s got great car control.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe used to talk about it all the time \u2014 as soon as the track went a bit damp or was half wet, Shane was immediately at the front of the field.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin chases Bezzecchi after French win | 01:43<\/p>\n
Van Gisbergen\u2019s seven victories makes him by far the most successful non-American NASCAR Cup driver of all time, well ahead of Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya, Australian Marcos Ambrose and Mexican Daniel Su\u00e1rez, who have two apiece.<\/p>\n
But the Kiwi\u2019s results are still notably lopsided, with his strongest performances on street and road courses that are still a small minority of the oval-dominated NASCAR calendar.<\/p>\n
It is, however, only his second full-time Cup Series season, and there were clear signs even late last year that his oval form is improving quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the last five weeks [of 2025] Shane has turned that ship around very, very effectively, and it\u2019s because he had the time to go back to these circuits,\u201d NASCAR commentator Leigh Diffey told Fox Sports at the end of last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cRemember [in 2024] he was racing in the Xfinity [development] series and doing guest spots in Cup. [2025] 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
\u201cI often refer back many months to a statement by Kyle Larson, the now two-time Cup Series champion. He 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marquez horror start continues in France | 01:25<\/p>\n
After a tough season-opening race in Daytona, van Gisbergen recorded a strong sixth-place finish at the Atlanta Motor Speedway, with a handful of top-20 finishes, including three top-15 results, following before his victory on the Watkins Glen road course.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, I think he is [improving],\u201d Skaife said. \u201cThere have been a lot of times this year he\u2019s been in the top 10, and he\u2019s been up there in contention. He\u2019s been in the wrong spot at the wrong time a few times.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he\u2019s probably going better there than you\u2019d think.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got himself organised \u2014 he\u2019s even shifted the peddles further apart so that he left-foot brakes on the ovals. That does make the pitch of the car more sensitive in terms of the way you go about turning into a corner. It doesn\u2019t upset the car so much.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of those techniques are just born and bred when you\u2019re in the US. You\u2019re on speedways the whole way through. We\u2019re just not like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NASCAR season continues with the exhibition All-Star Race in Dover, Delaware, this weekend before the championship resumes at Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina on 24 May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shane van Gisbergen\u2019s back-to-front victory at Watkins Glen proved the Kiwi is one of the \u201cbest race car…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[324255,2620,324250,2095,4131,64,63,324238,324237,324247,324240,174966,3165,2057,324256,2592,324024,2105,102663,324242,5744,324244,68175,6489,4280,127332,324019,806,805,803,804,955,1025,2041,2067,324254,2119,324251,324243,189912,324241,9909,85,42307,181153,171756,324252,324249,324245,11545,324248,43367,324253,324246,99293,2614,324239,2062,1740],"class_list":["post-671937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-aero-sensitive","tag-agence-france-presse","tag-all-time-classic-victory","tag-america","tag-atlanta","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-car-control","tag-classic-victory-charge","tag-clint-bowyer","tag-course-victory-leaderboard","tag-dale-jarrett","tag-daniel-suarez","tag-europe","tag-ex-supercars-star","tag-france","tag-french-sprint-race","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-horror-start","tag-jeff-gordon","tag-jorge-martin","tag-kevin-harvick","tag-kyle-larson","tag-leigh-diffey","tag-marc-marquez","tag-mark-skaife","tag-martin-chases","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-nascar","tag-new-york","tag-north-america","tag-northern-america","tag-percentage-terms","tag-pit-talk","tag-pre-eminent-road-racer","tag-race-car-drivers","tag-race-events","tag-road-courses","tag-shane-van-gisbergen","tag-sports","tag-state-of-georgia","tag-strategy-bungle","tag-street-course","tag-street-course-victory","tag-street-events","tag-street-course-starts","tag-strike-rate","tag-three-time-title-winner","tag-title-table","tag-title-deciding-knockout-races","tag-tony-stewart","tag-ty-gibbs","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-victory-lane","tag-western-europe","tag-xfinity-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671937","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=671937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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