Shane van Gisbergen has taken NASCAR’s Cup Series by storm, racking up five wins in his rookie full-time season, all on road courses, the kind of tracks that play right into his wheelhouse after years of winning through corners in Australian V8 Supercars. While he’s still finding his footing on ovals, his mastery of the twisty layouts has left even veterans tipping their hats. Among them was Denny Hamlin, who couldn’t help but laud SVG’s command of road racing.
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On his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin lauded SVG’s steady progress on ovals before emphasizing how complete a driver he’s becoming. “You’re gonna need SVG not just to win on the road courses, especially when they change the Playoff format, you’re definitely going to have to put the whole package together,” Hamlin noted.
In another episode, Hamlin went on to declare SVG the best road course driver NASCAR has ever seen while taking a playful jab at another legend in the debate. When The Athletic’s Jordan Bianchi argued that Jeff Gordon held that title, so skilled in his prime that some believed he could have thrived in Formula One, Hamlin didn’t mince words. “Jordan Bianchi is absolutely out of his mind,” he said.
“Yeah, he’s [SVG] on the short-list for the best NASCAR road racer ever. What is he talking about? Does he really think that Jeff Gordon, in his prime, would beat SVG today in a Next Gen car? Not a chance. Not a remote chance. Jeff Gordon was not winning by this margin. Jeff Gordon was not racing cars this equal to everyone else’s,” Hamlin added.
SVG, ever modest, brushed off the praise with humility. “I don’t agree with it, but it’s pretty amazing that my peers think that of me, and I had some amazing races this year on the road course, and yeah, my car is obviously very good as well.”
“So, thank you to Trackhouse. But yeah, I’d hopefully race these guys better on ovals and they start thinking of me of a serious competitor on ovals. But yeah, pretty humbling for them to say that,” he continued.
So far, the Trackhouse Racing driver has six Cup Series victories to his name and continues working on his oval craft. Progress is already showing; he bagged his first top-10 finish on an oval at Kansas after being eliminated in the opening playoff round.
For a driver who’s made a habit of rewriting the script, it seems only a matter of time before he starts turning continuous lefts just as well as he turns lefts and rights.
