{"id":112283,"date":"2025-09-01T17:06:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T17:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/112283\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T17:06:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T17:06:09","slug":"shane-van-gisbergens-embarrassing-admission-in-first-playoff-race-motorsport-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/112283\/","title":{"rendered":"Shane van Gisbergen’s ’embarrassing’ admission in first playoff race – Motorsport – Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shane van Gisbergen<\/a> made an \u201cembarrassing\u201d admission during his first NASCAR<\/a> playoff race at Darlington.<\/p>\n

The New Zealander, who entered the playoffs sixth in the 16-driver field, said his car was \u201cunraceable\u201d and that there was \u201cno drive.\u201d Van Gisbergen\u2019s first full-time NASCAR Cup Series season has seen him win four of the five road course races – making him the winningest rookie of all time.<\/p>\n

At Darlington<\/a>, as the driver dropped back to 29th place at the end of Stage 2, he told his crew over the team radio: \u201cThis car is unraceable. This is embarrassing. I can\u2019t turn, there\u2019s no drive, it\u2019s just not even close.\u201d His team replied to say that the car would improve as darkness set in, and Van Gisbergen<\/a> said: \u201cYeah, I f—— hope so\u2026 sorry for the language.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the race, the 36-year-old wrote on social media that it had not been \u201ca fun night.\u201d<\/p>\n

He posted on X: “We changed the car from yesterday and right away struggled with the balance. The guys didn\u2019t give up on tuning on it and tried something different with strategy, but got a caution at the wrong time and couldn\u2019t rebound from it!”<\/p>\n

Sign up to our NASCAR newsletter here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Fans responded to the post, encouraging Van Gisbergen to stay positive, with one writing: \u201cYou weren\u2019t the only Playoff driver to have a bad night, rebound next week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another said: \u201cHonestly the strategy wasn’t the best call. You don’t need to rely on crazy strategy to get you into a good position. Stay on the winning strategy and let your racing speak for itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

A third commented on the post: \u201cKeep pushing! You are going to advance to the next round. Just stay focused and don\u2019t lose heart!\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahead of Darlington, Van Gisbergen said he believed it was \u201calways fun to have your back against the wall\u201d and that it is \u201ccool being the underdog\u201d. He said his team would \u201ckeep doing what we\u2019ve been doing,\u201d but said that in NASCAR it was important to \u201celiminate or minimize what we do wrong, and just try to get it right every week.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be millimetre perfect every lap, comfortable to run against the wall and the proximity to the wall, and then the repetition and consistency. I think that seems to suit me, and the way the cars slide around, I really enjoy that place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Gisbergen admitted to reporters that the races at World Wide Technology Raceway and Bristol Motor Speedway would be \u201ctough.\u201d He has never before raced at the former, but said he had \u201cstruggled a bit\u201d at Bristol in the past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shane van Gisbergen made an \u201cembarrassing\u201d admission during his first NASCAR playoff race at Darlington. The New Zealander,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,63432,63431,2332,634,8662,9706,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-112283","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-car-performance-issues","11":"tag-darlington-race","12":"tag-motorsport-section","13":"tag-nascar","14":"tag-nascar-playoffs","15":"tag-shane-van-gisbergen","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}