Shane Van Gisbergen finished second to Tyler Reddick in the first road course race of the NASCAR Cup Series season at Circuit of the Americas but also had to work way harder for it than any of his five wins in 2025.
To wit, the three-time Supercars champion turned Cup Series contender isn’t sure he is automatically this favorite for this weekend at Watkins Glen either. His road course prowess isn’t enough to compensate for the reality that Trackhouse Racing is struggling everywhere right now.
“That’s a hard one,” said Van Gisbergen last weekend at Texas Motor Speedway. “We can’t magically go have amazing cars next week, right? So, I definitely think we felt it a bit as early as COTA that I definitely felt like I didn’t have a good car in comparison to last year compared to everyone else.
“So, we’re not going to magically show up at Watkins Glen and have the best cars; we need to definitely get better. It’s been a difficult season, especially the last few weeks for everyone, but I also enjoy the grind of trying to get better.
“It’s frustrating not being fast and we do need to get better.”
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There are positives too, of course, that SVG is 19th in the standings, which is a far improvement from last year now that he’s gotten fully acclimated to racing on ovals at the highest level. He is also only 16 points behind veteran teammate Ross Chastain.
But that’s the problem — Chastain is 18th in the standings with only two superspeedway top-10s on his 2026 resume. That’s not the driver. It’s the cars at Trackhouse year-over-year.
Again, it’s not like ‘SVG’ was bad at Circuit of the Americas but he said he just lacked everything in the car he had last year that did not allow him to flawlessly take or retain the lead.
“It was just everything,” Van Gisbergen said. “I didn’t have turn, drive or power, and those are the three things you need. It made it difficult at COTA and we struggled in qualifying so that’s frustrating.”
For Van Gisbergen to make the Chase for the Championship, he will need to take advantage of these road courses and win to the level he did last year. This playoff format no longer features and the win and you are in component, so there is extra pressure for ‘SVG’ to score max points this weekend and at the other tracks where he turns right.
“Yeah, of course, but I think it's that expectation you have to manage,” said Van Gisbergen. “As I said, we're not going to turn up and have magically the fastest cars, you know, that comes through hard work, not just putting good road course drivers in it. So yeah, we aren’t just showing up and expecting to win, but hopefully we’re good.”
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