Shane van Gisbergen’s NASCAR Cup Series Rookie of the Year-worthy season has been one for the history books, breaking Tony Stewart and Jimmie Johnson’s joint record of three wins in a debut season.

The 36-year-old New Zealander, who had participated in a handful of Cup Series races part-time prior to 2025, made the move to join Trackhouse Racing on a permanent basis in 2025, after one year running in the Xfinity Series with Kaulig Racing.

While van Gisbergen has needed time to learn the ways of oval racing, his prowess on road courses from his time racing Supercars in Australia paid off immediately. Out of the six road course races on the 2025 calendar, van Gisbergen won all bar one in dominant fashion, becoming the winningest rookie in history along the way.

Perhaps worryingly for the rest of the field, as the second half of the season wore on, van Gisbergen’s oval results also began to see a continual uptick, finishing 10th for the first time at Kansas Speedway, before pushing for another top 10 finish at Talladega Superspeedway.

Reflecting on his rookie campaign ahead of Tuesday’s NASCAR Awards Ceremony in Scottsdale, Arizona, the three-time Supercars Championship winner told Kelly Crandall the year was “what I hoped it would be.”

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“I’ve enjoyed my racing more than I thought, and I didn’t know what it’d be like doing the same thing every single weekend,” van Gisbergen admitted. “I was used to trying different series and different disciplines, really, and yeah, doing the same thing all year. I wasn’t sure how I’d find it, and yeah, I’ve really liked it.

“I like the challenges, I like how the tracks vary through the year. You’re not doing the same thing all the time, and yeah, I’ve really enjoyed myself here.”

Such challenges included four new tracks to the now six-time race winner: North Wilkesboro Speedway, Bowman Gray Stadium, World Wide Technology Raceway, and the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez — the latter he won despite being extremely unwell.

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Now with an extra year in NASCAR under his belt, and a better understanding of what he’s gotten himself into, van Gisbergen seems to be warming to a particular style of racing.

“I like the mile and a half tracks, the intermediate stuff,” he said. “I didn’t really like that that much in the Xfinity last year, and this year, that’s where I felt like I made the bigger gains in the second half of the year. So yeah, that type of racing where you can move around and the high speed that we’re doing, those tracks are pretty cool.”

With this in mind, van Gisbergen could be in for a treat next season, with the 1.5-mile tri-oval Chicagoland Speedway set to return to the calendar after a six-year hiatus, while a new road course at the San Diego Naval Base Coronado will make its debut. Unfortunately for the Kiwi, both Chicago and Mexico City’s street courses have been dropped.