NASCAR’s first road course race of the Cup season comes at the right time for Shane van Gisbergen.
After a ninth-place finish in the Clash exhibition race at Bowman Gray Stadium to begin February, the rest of the month was miserable for the Trackhouse Racing driver.
At Daytona, van Gisbergen went to a backup car for the 500 after his car was damaged in his qualifying race. He finished 33rd in the 500 after damage from an early incident. Last weekend at Atlanta, van Gisbergen was in position for a top-15 finish before he was collected in a last-lap crash and placed 23rd.
The result is that van Gisbergen enters Sunday’s Cup race at Circuit of the Americas (3:30 p.m. ET on Fox) 34th in the points.
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The top two national series will race a new layout for the first road course of the season.
This weekend is the first of five road courses in the Cup regular season that could pave the way for him to make the playoffs.
The three-time Australian Supercars champion has excelled on NASCAR’s road courses since winning in his Cup debut in 2023 at the Chicago Street Race.
“I just had, I guess, a jump on them at Chicago,” van Gisbergen said of Cup drivers. “I had, obviously, a great car, great team, but I was used to the street circuits.”
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Ross Chastain has the best average finish at COTA among active drivers but could face a challenge from teammate Shane van Gisbergen.
Van Gisbergen has made 11 road course starts between Cup and Xfinity, winning four times — one Cup race and three Xfinity races last year.
He nearly won at Watkins Glen last year, finishing second to Chris Buescher after a dramatic final lap. Van Gisbergen described the racing as “epic.”
“The guys here are just so talented,” van Gisbergen said of the Cup drivers. “When you race every week, you’re going to to get so good at it. I just see the prep and the level here, it’s just so high.”
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The Team Penske driver tends to avoid fraternizing with his Cup Series peers.
NASCAR will race on a different COTA course this weekend. Cup and Xfinity no longer will run the 3.41-mile course. Instead, both series will run on the track’s National course, which is 1 mile shorter. The change, along with the increase in laps from 68 to 95 for the Cup race, is meant to give fans in the stadium area more laps to see the action.
“We don’t lose any passing spots,” van Gisbergen said of the change to the track. “I think it’s probably a good thing, a shorter track.”
For all the attention on van Gisbergen’s success on road courses, his focus throughout the season is elsewhere.
“I just want to be someone who you think of an oval like that,” he said. “I really want to get better at ovals and every week be a contender, not just five times a year.”
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