As the NASCAR Cup Series prepares for its first road course round of the season at Austin, Texas’ Circuit of The Americas, it’ll be Shane van Gisbergen’s first Cup Series drive of the season.
Van Gisbergen, the surprise winner of last year’s inaugural Chicago Street Race, enters this Sunday with a completely different career outlook from when he arrived in Chicago last July.
With Australian Supercars in the rearview after three championships and 81 career wins, SVG has fully immersed himself in American stock car racing. The 34-year-old got his first taste of oval racing in a stock car earlier this year at Daytona (Fla.) Int’l Speedway where he finished 12th in the NASCAR Xfinity Series season opener.
A third-place effort at Atlanta Motor Speedway and sixth-place run at Phoenix Raceway highlight a stellar rookie campaign in the Xfinity Series for a driver who was previously acclimated to racing solely left and right.
During his media availability on Friday, the Kaulig Racing driver feels, despite the newness and challenges that each week presents, he’s enjoying the process.
“Yeah, I love that at the moment, it’s something different every week, and I’m just learning so much,” van Gisbergen said. “Every stage in every race, so far, I keep getting better and get to the end of the race and go, ‘Oh I wish I could start that again knowing what I do now.’
“The second half of the year is going to be good, going back to the tracks I already know. But yeah, just the preparation is so intense when it’s something you don’t know.”
Van Gisbergen will pull double duty for the first time this weekend as he’ll compete in both the Cup Series and Xfinity Series races at COTA. With that, SVG’s preparation and adaptation will be enhanced.
“Especially this week doing both classes, having to watch two races and two sets of onboards and understanding the cars, is probably going to be the biggest thing,” van Gisbergen said.
“I had a good chat with Marcos Ambrose last night, and he said the Xfinity car will be unlike anything I’ve ever driven.. the way it brakes and the way the rear end works. He said it’s probably similar to the Cup cars he was racing, so hopefully those things help and helps me speed up the learning process.”
Van Gisbergen does have previous experience at COTA, however, it wasn’t the same layout. In 2013, Supercars traveled to the circuit for the Austin 400. SVG finished 26th.
“At the last bit of the esses, where there’s a double-right, we turned left and did like a little chicane with a jump and joined the backstraight, so I missed those corners out the back,” van Gisbergen said. “But really, the surface is very weathered in a lot of corners. It looks a lot more slippery now than it did back then, apart from, obviously, the parts where they just resealed.
“So yeah, it’s going to be interesting to feel what it’s like, but I think these cars will drive very different to the Supercars then.”
Van Gisbergen starts second in Saturday’s Xfinity Series race at COTA.