Shane van Gisbergen is now in his second full-time Cup season, yet when the conversation turns to road courses, his name still sits at the head of the table. After Atlanta, the Cup garage will pack up for Circuit of the Americas, and while teams map out how to chase the win, another big question hangs in the air: how do you knock off SVG? His former teammate, AJ Allmendinger, believes he has picked up a few clues, even if cracking the code remains a tall order.
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The two shared space at Kaulig Racing during the 2024 Xfinity season, going wheel to wheel and often trading blows on road courses where both feel at home. Allmendinger has said that having SVG across the garage was like sitting in on a masterclass, especially when it came to tire management and maintaining pace over a run.
Now in 2026, both line up at the Cup level and turn their focus to the Autotrader 400 with one eye drifting toward COTA (Circuit of the Americas). Allmendinger opened up about what makes SVG such a hard nut to crack on road layouts. The No. 16 driver said, “I mean, I can’t. I can’t speak on every other driver. I think, for me, I’ve studied everything that I can study in car-wise, and I’ll continually do it going into next week.”
“You know, where he’s really good at is what the Supercar Series, at least from the outside of what I watched, is all about and it’s tire saving you roll out of your pit stop and you immediately go into tire conservation and that’s where he’s so good at. I think the outright speed we’ve shown in qualifying and stuff like that, you can run with them or you can be quicker in them.”
“But he’s so good on still being quick but never overstepping the tire and as Goodyear has softened these tires, it just makes that gap bigger and bigger,” Allmendinger further continued.
“The more times we can get fans together on both sides watching each series… I’m all for.”@AJDinger weighs in on the #NASCAR and #IndyCar combination race weekends.
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So, Van Gisbergen essentially walks a tightrope without falling off. He pushes, but not past the point of no return. That balance is where races are won and lost. Allmendinger admitted that while many drivers are chasing that same rhythm, it may not be as simple as copying notes. If there were a clear recipe to beat SVG, someone would have served it by now.
The good news is, Allmendinger is not fighting alone. He also pointed toward rookie Connor Zilisch, who has gone toe-to-toe with SVG in Xfinity road races and shown he can trade punches.
In past comments also, Allmendinger had tipped his cap to the driver from New Zealand, crediting him with raising the bar on road courses. While Allmendinger once carried the tag as the one to beat on this terrain, he has since handed that mantle to SVG, acknowledging that SVG’s pace and tire consistency are on a level he is still chasing.
