{"id":3631,"date":"2025-07-12T07:07:04","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T07:07:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/3631\/"},"modified":"2025-07-12T07:07:04","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T07:07:04","slug":"shane-van-gisbergen-evaluates-progress-on-nascar-ovals-trying-to-keep-up-with-ross-chastain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/3631\/","title":{"rendered":"Shane van Gisbergen evaluates progress on NASCAR ovals, trying to keep up with Ross Chastain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shane van Gisbergen<\/a> is a road-course racing savant. However, when it comes to ovals since going full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series<\/a>, he\u2019s struggled a bit.<\/p>\n

Locked into the playoffs with two wins after notching a victory in Chicago this past weekend, SVG may have some time to lock in and try to improve at the more traditional track type over the course of the summer. He evaluated his progress during an appearance on Kevin Harvick\u2019s Happy Hour<\/a> earlier this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re getting a lot better,\u201d van Gisbergen told Harvick<\/a>, regarding his performance on NASCAR\u2019s more traditional tracks. \u201cThe last couple of months, we\u2019ve really stepped up. I was probably a little bit too conservative at the start of the year, especially in qualifying. Then you start at the back and there\u2019s no air back there, with downforce and stuff, but I didn\u2019t feel like I was forcing it. I wasn\u2019t making too many mistakes, just kind of happy to be there, drive around and learn as much as I could. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe last few weeks, I\u2019ve sort of been taking more risk, particularly in qualifying, and I kind of feel like we\u2019re on the back of that midfield now. It\u2019s only a tenth or two to the back of the top ten in qualifying. It feels like we\u2019re a lot closer. Especially to my teammates, as well. I try, because some weeks we miss it a little bit with the car and I\u2019m racing my teammates in the mid-twenties, so I kind of have to gauge off that.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoss has this amazing ability, particularly late in the race, to get an amazing result out of a car that\u2019s P20. He\u2019ll drag it well inside the top ten. So I definitely need to get better at my restarts and car placement like him. Certainly, I feel like I\u2019m getting a lot better. I find tracks like Bristol are still \u2014 that was a really tough track for me. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Darlingtons and mile-and-a-halves \u2014 Michigan, I felt competitive and confident to move around and search for air, whereas sometimes I haven\u2019t been. So, I feel like I\u2019m getting better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps learning from his teammate in Ross Chastain<\/a> will help SVG in the long run. The fellow Trackhouse Racing star has become one of NASCAR\u2019s best, and he\u2019s a threat on any track \u2014 he proved that during the Coca-Cola 600 back in May.<\/p>\n

While Shane van Gisbergen will get to enjoy another road course this weekend in Sonoma, it\u2019ll be paramount to his championship dreams to improve at NASCAR\u2019s other tracks over the rest of the summer. Whether or not he\u2019s able to could be the difference between making a run at a title or exiting the playoffs early this fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shane van Gisbergen is a road-course racing savant. However, when it comes to ovals since going full-time in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[425,99],"class_list":["post-3631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}