Shane van Gisbergen Finally Breaks His Silence on Debut Season Chaos, as He Fights Back Hard in 2025

Shane van Gisbergen and the garage of Trackhouse Racing are having their best time this year. While this period of joy and elation stems from two Cup wins in Mexico City and in Chicago, things weren’t always smooth for the #88 team. In the first seven starts, the Kiwi driver couldn’t fire off and had a 30th-place or worse finish in five races with a single top 10 run, which came at COTA. This was reminiscent of last year’s run when he couldn’t deliver in the playoffs after his crew chief, Bruce Schlicker, left after 20 races.

SVG had to balance the rookie season with Kaulig Racing and then hop into the Cup car as well. It was a grind switching between the #16 and #13 teams and then going back to the Xfinity Series. While the early struggles were concerning for SVG and his group this year, they’ve bounced back strong with hopes of more wins in 2025. As it turns out, the three-time Supercars champion prefers a tight-knit group that can back him consistently every week, and that has been a driving factor for success so far this season.

SVG prefers a team that he can rely on throughout the season

As an outsider, when a team doesn’t perform well, one often assumes that if the state of the team on the track is such, the atmosphere and the conversations inside the garage would be even worse. However, Kaulig Racing wasn’t the one to stick to this convention. The Kiwi driver describes how the team’s mindset was very optimistic, and they enjoyed the process despite having a tough time on the scoresheet last year.

“Even when it was tough, early in the year, like we had a string of four weeks finishing in the 30s, you know, and, but the atmosphere in the team, and we knew that we weren’t going to stay at the back for long, and just building like, yeah, we had a great bunch of people and it was fun, you know,” said SVG to Kevin Harvick, on his Happy Hour podcast.

The major difference between last year and this year for van Gisbergen has been the consistency factor. Last year, he not only had to deal with the crew chief change but also switch cars every week across series, which diluted his focus and gave him enough bandwidth to settle in the Cup Series. Although Stephen Doran and SVG didn’t click right away to start his rookie year, they’ve managed to turn a corner for good in the last few weeks.

“We were still running bad but we were having a lot of fun and knew it would get better, and these last few weeks getting results on ovals getting better, and then the road courses, man, seeing how much it means to them and how much we’ve all come together, you know, it’s really really cool,” SVG explained.

Justin Marks and Co. knew that they were taking a huge gamble by signing Shane van Gisbergen, but with two Cup wins, the most of any Trackhouse Racing driver this year, this move has been a huge success. If anything, the team behind the scenes are all-in for the challenge. Remember JP Kealey, the tire changer who suffered broken ribs and punctured lungs at Pocono after a flying tire locked him out? Well, he turned up in Chicago despite not being 100%. Moments and energy like this are what make a team click, and it certainly has worked well for SVG and the entire #88 group.

Although the team morale is high, the Kiwi driver understands that he still has a lot of work to do for a deep playoff run. One of the major challenges for him will be ovals.

How is SVG tackling the ovals?

It would be too harsh to say that SVG is a bad race car driver on ovals. Even last year in the Xfinity Series, he had top 10 runs at tracks like Phoenix, Darlington and Kansas, not to forget the top 5 finishes at Atlanta and Brickyard. So, he is trying his best to do the same this year at the Cup level, the only difference is that he is up against the best talents while racing on Sundays.

Early in the season, SVG wasn’t pushing his race car to get the best performance. But he’s picked up the pace the last few weeks and has been inspired by Ross Chastain to get the best possible result on the day. “Ross has this amazing ability, particularly late in the race to get an amazing result out of the car that’s 20th, he’ll drag it well inside the top 10. So, I definitely need to get better at my restarts and car placement like him. But, certainly, I feel like I’m a lot better.”

Tracks like Brickyard and Iowa are lined up within the regular season races. Now that SVG and his team have secured their playoffs spot, they can maximize on bolstering their oval race craft.