In a recap video posted to his YouTube channel this week, Shane van Gisbergen reflected on a disappointing result at San Diego, and appeared to take aim at Austin Hill for the race-ending restart crash.
Van Gisbergen didn’t say much about the incident itself at the infield care center on Sunday, even telling reporters to “ask the next guys.”
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But in the recap video, he briefly looked back on the weekend, and appeared to call out Austin Hill as the ‘spud’ responsible for wrecking him at not just San Diego, but one week prior at Pocono.
Recent incidents with Austin Hill
At San Diego, Hill missed the apex and ran wide while restarting on the front row, putting Connor Zilisch and himself in the wall. Zilisch’s teammate Van Gisbergen was directly behind that, and plowed into the melee as well (which you can see above). In the immediate moments following the wreck, Van Gisbergen appeared to drive forward and then backup, blocking Hill’s path as he tried to drive his own damaged car away from the accident scene.
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And just one week before, Hill was at the epicenter of another incident with Van Gisbergen (which you can see below), who was battling hard with Josh Berry for position. The two cars drifted up the track in Turn 4 and Hill sent it three-wide on the inside, but pushed up as well. The three cars quickly ran out of room, causing a crash that collected Van Gisbergen and several others.
Van Gisbergen has since fallen outside the Chase, and is now five points out as NASCAR heads to Sonoma (where he is the defending winner) for its final road course race of the 2026 season.
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New comments from SVG
“Still pretty shitty after the weekend,” said Van Gisbergen in the video, filming his post-race reflections on Tuesday.
“Two weeks in a row, taken out by the same spud. It sucked. Tough one. We had a pretty average start to the race. I wasn’t doing very well and I struggled, and then it felt like our car was coming alive. Potentially, we were back in the race, and unfortunately, got taken out. So, yeah, that sucked. Pretty gutted — everyone is. Both of us — Connor and myself, ended up wrecked, but yeah, it happens.
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“Trying to reset, a couple of days here in L.A. with Red Bull, which is awesome, getting to check out the athlete center. The guys are doing some pit stop practice, and then we’ll head up to Sonoma probably Thursday, and try to redeem ourselves a bit.”
Van Gisbergen will face Hill twice at Sonoma, as they are both competing in the NASCAR O’Reilly race on Saturday, as well as the Cup race on Sunday. They have had some fairly spirited battles in the past, including at Sonoma, with SVG pushing him aside for a 2024 win there, and Hill showing his displeasure after the race.
You can watch the full recap of SVG’s San Diego weekend in the video below:
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