Shane van Gisbergen’s debut NASCAR Cup Series season isn’t unfolding as he had envisioned. The New Zealand driver faced another challenging race in the Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway, finishing 20th. Despite his mid-field result, there was a silver lining; it was van Gisbergen’s second-best finish of the season and his best on an oval track. His only noteworthy finish prior was sixth place on the road course at Circuit of the Americas.
However, van Gisbergen has consistently struggled, finishing 20th or worse in seven of the first eight races, with five of those races ending lower than 30th. Reflecting on his Darlington performance, he said, “It’s not the best result, I guess, but for us and how it’s been going, we struggled a bit for balance but our long run speed was good and we were able to make some passes, so yeah, we’ll take 20th,” he shared with podcaster Nikolai P. Culp. “It’s something to build on.”
Van Gisbergen admits this NASCAR season has been one of the toughest starts he’s experienced in any form of racing. He attributed his poor results to various challenges including car failures and crashes. “We’ve just had one thing after another with our car failures or someone else’s crash, or I’ve just simply not been good enough,” he admitted. Despite this, he believes in his ability to compete, saying, “I feel like I can run with these guys, qualifying is still a struggle for me the way this car works, but my race pace is alright. I just keep getting caught up in stuff early on.”
Looking ahead, van Gisbergen faces his next challenge at Bristol Motor Speedway, tackling high banks for the first time in his Cup career. This race marks the quarter-point of the 36-race Cup season, and van Gisbergen currently sits 33rd in the standings, far from where he hoped to be. “Next week’s going to be really, really tough,” he noted. “I’ve never been at Bristol in a Cup car and with limited practice, tracks like that are insane, how fast they run at.”
Despite the rocky start, van Gisbergen remains optimistic. “Yeah, it’ll come in time,” he concluded, determined to improve his performance as the season progresses.
