Teammates stand up for each other, and Shane van Gisbergen has done exactly that for Ross Chastain. The winner of Sunday’s inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race in Mexico City praised his Trackhouse Racing teammate quite generously, and with reason.
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Chastain has been a key influence on SVG, particularly when it comes to racing on ovals. Granted, the Mexico City event was on a road course, but Chastain has helped his teammate become a better NASCAR driver in the overall scheme of things.
“When the cars are average, I take the blame, obviously, because we know on ovals I’m not quite there yet,” Van Gisbergen said on Wednesday’s edition of the Stacking Pennies podcast with Corey LaJoie.
“I was battling Ross for 30th at Homestead. So I know that our cars aren’t that good. So I just try and compare as much as I can to Daniel [Suarez] and Ross. And most of those races when we’re in the 20s or the 30s, they weren’t too far ahead, which was pretty cool,” he added, before praising Chastain’s racing prowess.
“Ross has this amazing ability to get the restarts, get huge spots, and just get a result, a top-five or a top-10 out of a 20-something-place car. He is exceptional,” said the New Zealander.
“So I’m just trying to get close to my teammates, but certainly our overall car performance has really improved the last month or so,” he added.
But on Sunday, it was Van Gisbergen leading Trackhouse Racing’s charge at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City.
‘Guys, I know what I’m doing!’
On the podcast, Van Gisbergen, who won by over 16 seconds, was reminded of the conversation he had late in the race on his team radio. According to co-host Ryan Flores, SVG‘s team was telling him to “back it down”, but Van Gisbergen had replied, “Guys, I know what I’m doing! Like, give me a break.”
SVG chuckled a bit while replying to Flores. “I guess that’s this dynamic of the sport, that if someone’s leading by so far, they look for any excuse to throw a yellow,” he said.
“But for me, that’s just how it is. If a yellow comes out, every single car is going to pit, the tires are already two seconds a lap off,” narrated Van Gisbergen.
He then explained what was going through his mind in the latter stages of the race.
“I tried to go slow, and you just lose concentration. I just needed to stick in this rhythm, and I just tried to do 35.8s or 36.0s, I think it was, and just try and hit that every lap and challenged myself to be as consistent as possible without taking a risk,” said SVG.
“I was better when I was focused. As soon as my mind starts wandering, I lose where I’m at. So I try to tell them to stop telling me to back it down,” he added.
With his road course credentials rock solid as ever, Van Gisbergen will remain focused on nailing his oval performances in his quest to become a complete NASCAR driver.
