{"id":651382,"date":"2026-05-06T10:57:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T10:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/651382\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T10:57:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T10:57:24","slug":"shane-van-gisbergen-on-what-makes-a-race-car-fun-his-alternate-path-and-more-12-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/651382\/","title":{"rendered":"Shane van Gisbergen on what makes a race car fun, his alternate path and more: 12 Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Each week, The Athletic asks the same 12 questions to a different race car driver. Up next: Shane van Gisbergen, who returns to Watkins Glen International this week as the defending winner of the road course race. This interview has been edited and condensed, but the full version is available on\u00a0the 12 Questions Podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n

1. Do you typically arrive for things early, late or on time, and why?<\/p>\n

I normally just aim for the time. I\u2019ve got to get there. I guess I don\u2019t like getting to things early and having to wait around. But then you don\u2019t want to piss people off being late either.<\/p>\n

2. What is the pettiest thing that annoys you during a race weekend?<\/p>\n

Pettiest \u2026 good question. I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t have anything on my list that relates to that question.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re just more of a roll-with-the-punches type guy?<\/p>\n

Yeah, just accept how it is.<\/p>\n

3. What is something you\u2019ve learned to stop explaining to people?<\/p>\n

Justifying bad weekends. Especially here \u2014 you can run 20th to 30th and have a decent day, but people are just better here. Everyone at home (in New Zealand) wonders what\u2019s going on and expects so much out of you, but it\u2019s hard to explain how good and how close everyone is here, especially on ovals.<\/p>\n

I had a friend come to Kansas a couple weeks ago, and I just said, \u201cFor qualifying, go down to Turn 1 and stand there. It\u2019ll blow you away.\u201d And yeah, he couldn\u2019t believe it \u2014 how fast we go and how much the cars are moving around, on edge. You have to see it to understand. I don\u2019t think TV does a good job of that.<\/p>\n

Honestly, even being up high in the press box, you still don\u2019t get it. Then sometimes when I\u2019m walking through the tunnel by Turn 1 and the cars are just screaming by \u2014 the difference between being up high in the stands or close to the fence is like, whoa \u2026<\/p>\n

Even when we\u2019re watching qualifying from the car and seeing guys sailing past into Turn 1, it\u2019s like, \u201cS\u2014, these guys are ripping.\u201d Then you\u2019ve got to go do it yourself. It\u2019s pretty cool.<\/p>\n

4. If you could go back to the early days before you reached the top level in Supercars, what is one different decision you wish you had made?<\/p>\n

I had a chance to go race A1GP at the time \u2014 the nation-versus-nation single-seater stuff (drivers represented their countries in open-wheel cars). The Giltrap family, who still support me now, had me in the single-seater classes in New Zealand, and the next step was to go overseas and race in A1GP.<\/p>\n

But at that time, V8 Supercars was massive, and that\u2019s what I always wanted to do. So I chose that, and it worked out well \u2014 I went straight into the main Supercars series (where he went on to win three Supercars championships and 80 races).<\/p>\n

5. What is it like to be in a debrief after a bad race?<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had a few of them lately. It\u2019s hard, and it gets harder. The last three weeks (before Texas) we\u2019ve had bad ones, and you know you\u2019ve got to turn the page Monday night and focus on the next week, but it gets harder to do that.<\/p>\n

I feel like this year we\u2019ve got a good group of people around us, so it\u2019s still a good vibe, but yeah \u2014 it\u2019s hard when you have a bad day. You\u2019ve got to not finger-point, but try to understand what happened.<\/p>\n

It takes a bit to blame yourself sometimes, or to accept when it\u2019s you that made the problem. But I think I\u2019ve gotten better at that.<\/p>\n

\"Shane<\/p>\n

\n Shane van Gisbergen takes the checkered flag last August in the Cup Series race at Watkins Glen. He\u2019ll be a favorite to defend his victory this weekend. (Sean Gardner \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

6. I\u2019m asking each driver two wild-card questions: One about the past and one about the present. On last year\u2019s 12 Questions interview, you said the most miserable you\u2019d ever been inside a race car was the last year you raced Supercars, because you hated that car. Now in Formula 1 this year, we are hearing drivers say similar things about how much they dislike their new cars, and we once heard that in NASCAR as well. So from a driver\u2019s standpoint, what makes a race car enjoyable to drive?<\/p>\n

For me, I want a raw car where the driver is the limit. You can push yourself and go a little bit harder and keep getting lap time out of it.<\/p>\n

Some cars, you\u2019re just driving to the limit of what you\u2019ve got, and you don\u2019t have any tools \u2014 whether it\u2019s your skills or in-car adjustments \u2014 to make it better. You\u2019re just stuck with whatever you\u2019ve got. I call those \u201cengineer\u2019s cars.\u201d You\u2019re driving what they\u2019ve given you, and you\u2019re stuck at that level. You don\u2019t have any ability to make a difference.<\/p>\n

But cars like these (NASCAR\u2019s Next Gen cars), where the faster you go, the more downforce you make, where you can search for grip \u2014 that\u2019s what I like. You can do things to make it better.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting, my comments (about the Supercars) are similar to what the F1 car is going (through), or (NASCAR\u2019s) Car of Tomorrow or even this (Next Gen) car when it first came out with the older guys (disliking it). So it happens everywhere. For me, change was good (going from Supercars to NASCAR), but maybe if I\u2019d gone from the old car to this car (in NASCAR), I\u2019d feel the same way.<\/p>\n

7. In terms of the present, Trackhouse is struggling right now, but you\u2019re also trying to keep learning your craft on ovals. (Have) the team\u2019s difficulties this year affected your ability to learn oval racing, or can you still keep learning at the pace you need to despite not having a fast car?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a bit of both. I know my teammate in the 1 car (Ross Chastain) is capable of winning races, so when we\u2019re battling, I use him as a reference and a yardstick to see where I\u2019m really at.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a hard one, because I\u2019m still learning, but I\u2019ve had enough time now to know what a good car should feel like, so hopefully I can help direct us to be better. But there are weeks where all three of us are out to lunch, and it\u2019s difficult. So I\u2019ve just got to remember I\u2019ve got good teammates and base my speed off of them when it\u2019s tough as well.<\/p>\n

8. If you could get any driver\u2019s helmet in the history of motorsports, whose would it be?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m trying to do a swap with Scotty (McLaughlin, his former Supercars competitor who now races IndyCar). We wanted to do a Supercars-era one from when we battled each other, but we\u2019ve both given those away. So I think we\u2019re going to swap Daytona 24 helmets from when we raced together.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s probably the main one I want. I just like swapping with friends or people I become close with.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m also thinking about starting to do race suits. Because that\u2019s a bit easier. Helmets are pretty special \u2014 you only get one or two a year \u2014 but you get a lot of race suits, especially here with all the different sponsors.<\/p>\n

9. When things aren\u2019t going well, do you prefer people leave you alone or check in on you?<\/p>\n

Leave me alone. Especially after a bad week \u2014 we have our meetings Monday, but after that I just stay away from the world, hang out with the dogs or my wife, and chill out. Normally, I\u2019m good by Tuesday \u2014 or Wednesday if it was a really bad week.<\/p>\n

10. What is something about yourself that would surprise people who think they know you?<\/p>\n

I like being someone where people know enough, but not everything. In this world, people have too much access to you or expect too much access. I like having that unknown and being able to get away. I like people not knowing.<\/p>\n

Away from the track, I\u2019m a pretty different person, but I feel like people know me enough at race weekends \u2014 and that\u2019s part of my job. But I like being able to switch that part of my life off during the week.<\/p>\n

11. What is something you laugh about now that was absolutely not funny at the time?<\/p>\n

My first Melbourne Grand Prix with my teammates \u2014 my father-in-law was my team boss at the time, and we had a rule: no hitting, no touching.<\/p>\n

The three of us were battling for the lead, I pulled a good pass on my teammate and kind of propped it up so he couldn\u2019t cut back on me. He tapped me on corner exit and chipped his headlight \u2014 it was nothing.<\/p>\n

But then afterward, we got absolutely screamed at. The beatdown we got from him for crashing \u2026 it was a Formula One weekend, big Red Bull race and sponsors, and even though we finished 1-2-3, we got slammed for it.<\/p>\n

I can laugh with him now about it, but at the time I was like, \u201cOh s\u2014\u201d because I thought it was a great race and I won. But he went crazy at all of us. Learned pretty quick to give my teammates a bit of extra room that day.<\/p>\n

12. Each week, I ask a driver to give me a question for the next person. The last one was Bubba Wallace<\/a>, and he said: Who is someone you\u2019d like to have a heart-to-heart talk with, friend or foe, and why?<\/p>\n

Probably my main friends back home. I don\u2019t get to do it enough anymore. When I go home, it\u2019s a whirlwind trip, and you\u2019re catching up with people, but you don\u2019t get time for those (deeper) conversations like you used to. Being on the other side of the world, it\u2019s just harder to talk with those guys as much as I used to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Each week, The Athletic asks the same 12 questions to a different race car driver. Up next: Shane…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,12716,634,82],"class_list":["post-651382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-motorsports","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651382","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=651382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}