{"id":64480,"date":"2025-08-12T17:28:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T17:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/64480\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T17:28:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T17:28:08","slug":"denny-hamlin-names-only-nascar-driver-who-has-chance-at-challenging-svg-on-road-courses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/64480\/","title":{"rendered":"Denny Hamlin names only NASCAR driver who has chance at challenging SVG on road courses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Can anyone compete with Shane van Gisbergen<\/a> on a road course in the NASCAR<\/a> Cup Series? That\u2019s the question Denny Hamlin<\/a> is posing, after the New Zealander won his fourth race of the season this past weekend. <\/p>\n

The man affectionately known as SVG has been a revelation on road courses, winning four in a row and giving himself a nice advantage for the playoffs. The Trackhouse Racing star is far and away the class of the field at these tracks, and he proved it again at Watkins Glen this past weekend.<\/p>\n

While examining who can match up with him, the only name that came to mind is wunderkind Connor Zilisch<\/a> for Hamlin. However, he\u2019s not sure that even the young superstar in the Xfinity Series can handle SVG in Cup. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think he wins road courses for the foreseeable future,\u201d Hamlin stated<\/a>, via his\u00a0Actions Detrimental<\/a> podcast. \u201cI mean, in straight up equipment, Connor\u2019s beating him in Xfinity. So, you could say that what could be coming is essentially a kind of a one-two battle there. <\/p>\n

\u201cNow, this tire and car is going to react a lot different than what the Xfinity car seems like. Connor was really, really good. But now, he\u2019s really like, fine-tuning his skill in the Xfinity car. When he comes to Cup, he\u2019s really good, still really fast, but still not qualifying like P2, P1. There\u2019s unrealistic expectations we\u2019re putting on him right now, but it\u2019s what we expect. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s what will come in the next year or so where it\u2019s likely that these two will be head and shoulders still above the field. Likely the only battle you\u2019ll have is between those two to figure out who\u2019s going to win the road course race that day. Unless something wacky happens. That\u2019s the only way.\u201d<\/p>\n

As far as current full-time Cup Series wheelman though, Hamlin believes it\u2019s van Gisbergen\u2019s world, and they\u2019re all living in it: <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think so. I think, if anything, he just continues to get more track time at these tracks. The gap has stabilized,\u201d Hamlin added<\/a>. \u201c\u2026 There\u2019s a certain element where the fans will get a little fatigued with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do have to appreciate the greatness that we\u2019re seeing on this type of racetrack though. It\u2019s something to be admired and certainly exposes the rest of the field to show that like, there\u2019s more left there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alas, it\u2019s tough to believe anyone can compete with Shane van Gisbergen on road courses, especially after the dominant performance he put forward in New York. Perhaps there\u2019s a wheelman that can break through and compete with the Trackhouse star next time around, but Denny Hamlin isn\u2019t betting on it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Can anyone compete with Shane van Gisbergen on a road course in the NASCAR Cup Series? That\u2019s the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-64480","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-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64480","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=64480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}