A simple fight for track position has turned into a bitter war between Shane van Gisbergen and Austin Hill. Their crash at Chicagoland Speedway has the whole NASCAR garage taking sides. Some believe the Trackhouse Racing driver made an honest mistake. Others, especially the team at Richard Childress Racing, are calling it obvious payback for past wrecks.

Now, NASCAR is in a tough spot. Fans and teams want consistent rules, and officials may have to use hidden car data to decide if van Gisbergen deserves a penalty.

Insiders stir NASCAR’s penalty debate

The question for NASCAR is what to do next. Earlier in 2026, NASCAR penalized driver Ryan Preece for crashing into Ty Gibbs on purpose at Texas Motor Speedway. If officials think van Gisbergen wrecked Hill on purpose, he should face a similar penalty. However, as insiders Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi pointed out on the latest episode of the Teardown podcast. NASCAR usually relies on a driver’s radio audio to prove they meant to crash, which “does not exist in this case,” noted Bianchi.

Amidst discussion of the lack of any radio chatter, Austin Hill’s infamous incident last year at Indianapolis resurfaced, wherein the RCR camp had passionately denied any involvement in the incident. To this, Jeff Gluck had an interesting take.

“Either way, like it’s an intentional action. Now, the intentional action on a right rear hook results in a suspension. The intentional action on what we saw there, like with the [Ryan] Preece thing, that’s not a suspension, but it is a points penalty. I could feel that being justified in a points penalty”, Gluck said.

He further added that NASCAR has the justification to hand SVG a points deduction, given they have complete access to SMT data, but with van Gisbergen’s silence, they could easily choose to look the other way.

“However, NASCAR could easily say and justify to themselves and everyone else,” Gluck said. “We don’t have any evidence. The evidence there would be to look at SMT data, which we don’t have access to. Somebody is going to go look at it and say, yeah, he never let off the gas, or he steered into this, or I don’t know what you’d really do.”

Whether NASCAR chooses to penalise SVG or not remains to be seen, but Jeff Gluck feels a decision could already be in place, “I think from NASCAR’s standpoint, they could sort of go either with the justification for it, and ultimately I’m going to guess, they probably won’t.”

While the entire racing community waits on NASCAR’s final verdict, it seems Dale Jr. & Steve Letarte have reached a verdict on van Gisbergen’s antics.

SVG lands in hot waters

Van Gisbergen claims he was just trying to race on the bottom groove and accidentally crashed into Hill. But the truth is locked inside NASCAR’s telemetry boxes. This digital data changes the entire story

As Steve Letarte, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Jamie McMurray highlighted on Inside the Race, the data does not lie. The telemetry tracks exactly when a driver accelerates, brakes, and turns the steering wheel. If NASCAR officials check the numbers, they will know the timeline of the crash.

According to Leatarte, SVG’s ‘racing incident’ defense could completely crumble as the current data paints a different picture altogether. The numbers show van Gisbergen drove much deeper into the corner on that specific lap than he did during the rest of the race. His own right foot betrays him. The throttle and brake traces prove he made a massive driving error. This makes it very hard for his fans to defend the move as just a “racing deal.”

Ultimately, this choice belongs entirely to NASCAR. They have the data, the precedents, and the tools to intervene, but whether they choose to drop the hammer or let the drivers settle it on the asphalt remains to be seen.