After Openly Admitting He Made NASCAR Drivers “Look Bad”, Chase Elliott Looks Forward to NASCAR Return of Shane van Gisbergen

A couple of weeks ago when NASCAR headed down to the Chicago Street Course for the very first time, no one anticipated a non-NASCAR driver winning that race. Well, that is exactly what happened. While the regular NASCAR drivers struggled to stay out of the walls, V8 Supercars champion Shane van Gisbergen picked up his very first Cup Series win right on his debut.

Speaking about this win, Hendrick Motorsports Chase Elliott mentioned how SVG had made the other drivers look bad. Interestingly, as we head down to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in a couple of weeks for the road course race, Gisbergen will make his second appearance in the Cup Series. When asked about that, Elliott took an appreciative tone and welcomed the Kiwi driver back to NASCAR.

Chase Elliott talks about SVG’s return to Indianapolis Motor Speedway

While speaking at the driver’s press conference at Pocono, Elliott stated, “Yeah, I didn’t know he was coming back, so that’s awesome. I hope all of those guys come and run more races because I think it’ll make us better at the end of the day. That’s super cool and I’m glad to hear that he got another opportunity. I mean the guy went and won the race. He deserves to race however much he wants. But I think that’s great and I’m looking forward to having him and looking forward to racing with him again. As I alluded to up in Chicago, I thought his drive was not only impressive but very classy.”

“You didn’t see him running over people. He didn’t run over people to go win the race. I thought he did it the right way and that is very admirable, and I think people like that deserve great opportunities. Looking forward to having him back and racing against both of those guys.”

What did Elliott exactly say at Chicago when SVG won the race?

Following the race, Elliott and his teammate Larson were all highly impressed by the Kiwi’s win. Larson said, “It was cool to see, and I think when a guy like that can come in and kick your ass at your own game, it shows that we all have room to improve.”

Meanwhile, his teammate, Elliott said, “I don’t want to speak for everybody else, but he made me look bad, and I kind of think the rest of us, too. He’s going to go home and tell all of his friends how bad we are.”

Interestingly, fellow driver Denny Hamlin had countered Elliott’s claims about making them look bad. The JGR driver expressed that the NASCAR drivers had stepped into SVG’s world considering that none of the NASCAR drivers had driven at street courses before. Meanwhile, the V8 Supercars series ran several street courses in its regular schedule.