By any measure, Shane van Gisbergen has had an incredibly successful Cup Series rookie season. With four wins, he’s tied with Denny Hamlin for the most of any driver this season.
However, all those wins have come on one track type: road and street courses. The ovals, on the other hand, have been more of a struggle. With all of his wins, SVG is still back in 25th in the regular season standings as a result.
For a driver committed to improving himself and embracing NASCAR, that’s not good enough. Van Gisbergen has emphasized since joining the sport that his focus is on developing his oval abilities.
He explained what that process looks like in practice heading into Richmond Raceway, a track he’s raced at previously in the Xfinity Series but not in the Cup Series.
Of all the tools at his disposal, SVG said that the most important exercise for him leading up to the race was watching film of past races and reviewing driver telemetry.
“Yeah, a lot of video study, mainly,” van Gisbergen described his strategy the week before the race. “I try and study as many drivers as I can. Yesterday, I had the race on, watched last year’s practice, qualifying and race, and then had SMT up at the same time. That’s probably what I get more out of.”
In fact, he said that reviewing film and telemetry data was more helpful than laps in the simulator.
“I find myself sort of doing less and less sim and more video stuff. I find that sort of helping me more these days.”
As for whose telemetry he’s watching, it’s not just teammates Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez. Van Gisbergen also looks at some of the best drivers at any given track. For Richmond that was Denny Hamlin, a four-time winner at the circuit.
“This week, I’ve kind of been studying Denny and Ross the most,” van Gisbergen described his process. “Ross’s car’s probably most similar to how mine’s going to be, so trying to just see what they were doing with gears. You can change gear a lot here, and it changes the car balance quite a lot.
“I just tried to study those two guys. But, you know, different tracks might be different people, whoever stands out, and just try and emulate what they’re doing, I guess.”
That means van Gisbergen is getting exposure to a variety of different driving styles. For instance, Hamlin has a very abrupt way of getting on the throttle at Richmond. That’s shown him that there are multiple ways to be fast, and he’s focused on developing his own approach.
“Yeah, it’s just amazing when there’s different styles, right? His style’s very unique, the way he’s mainly using a different gear and stabbing at the throttle, and it’s just techniques I’ve never come across or needed to use before,” van Gibsergen described.
“But in NASCAR, there’s so many different ways to get the car around the track fast, and I’m trying to be as open-minded as possible in changing my style, especially for a track I’ve never been to before,” he added.
“All these top guys have such subtle little differences in the way they drive, and it’s really interesting trying to pick things up because I’m sort of like a clean sheet of paper with oval driving, so trying to find a style that works for me.”
Besides getting his driving style down, van Gisbergen highlighted two additional areas he needed to focus on: pit road and in-car adjustments. Having come from a series with pit limiters, he explained that pit road speed has been a struggle to learn not to give up valuable time. And not having much oval experience, he struggles to know what adjustments to ask for when he does get on pit road.
What’s so unique about SVG is that, even as he works hard every week to make those improvements, he still has a smile on his face every week. While he acknowledged that the four wins and getting married in the middle of the season have helped, he said the learning process has been enough to bring out a smile on its own.
“Every race weekend, even if it’s good or bad, I enjoy going into the shop on Monday and doing the meetings. It’s going to work every day, but it doesn’t really feel like a job,” van Gisbergen described.
“I’m loving every minute of it.”
- Slimmed Playoff Field Faces the Grind of the Magic Mile - September 18, 2025
- From Spinning to Winning: Riggs Punches Ticket to Next Round - September 11, 2025
- Denny Hamlin Knows His Career Expiration Date - September 8, 2025