By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service
SONOMA, Calif.—We all know that, given a car he likes, Shane van Gisbergen is all but unbeatable on a road or street course.
After Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway, we now know SVG can win in a car he hates.
Throughout the Sonoma weekend, the three-time Australian Supercars champion was grousing about the performance of his No. 97 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet. It wasn’t fast in practice or qualifying.
The driver who invariably starts on the pole on road courses was sixth fastest in time trials, relegated to a third-row start and faced with the challenge of overcoming faster cars in front of him.
Even a victory in Saturday’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto parts Series didn’t do much to improve his mood.
Crew chief Stephen Doran and the No. 97 team made setup changes to the NASCAR Cup Series car before Sunday’s race. The car was better—but not great.
“I thought we were a lost cause,” van Gisbergen said. “Yeah, the guys did a great job making setup changes, and as soon as the race started, I still felt average, but I saw other people had similar issues or worse.
“Then that gave me confidence.”
A contributing factor to SVG’s dissatisfaction was the way the race ended a week earlier at Naval Base Coronado, where van Gisbergen did have a great car.
Collected when Austin Hill locked his brakes in Turn 1 and knocked Connor Zilisch into the wall on Lap 32, van Gisbergen exited the race with his Camaro too badly damaged to continue.
Van Gisbergen said he had put the accident behind him by the time he got to wine country. Doran had other ideas.
“For him I feel like it took more than a few days,” Doran said after Sunday’s race. “To me, he felt grumpy all weekend. So, yeah, I could tell it stung, hurt him as much as it did all of us, but he was grumpy all weekend. Grumpy with the car all day today even.
“I have to say it wasn’t a good car we gave him today. Luckily, we had him driving it to get here. Yeah, thank God we have him, or we wouldn’t be here right now. We did a lot of work overnight trying to get it better. I am still really not sure what it was that he didn’t like about it, but he, honestly, hated the car all weekend.
“I would say it was slightly better today, but still not great. Not as good as it was last year (when van Gisbergen won at Sonoma for the first time).”
Even van Gisbergen’s consummate skill, however, wasn’t enough to seal the victory on Sunday. It took a mistake on track by Chase Briscoe and a choice from the pit box that affected the winning chances of polesitter Ty Gibbs.
With four laps left, Briscoe ran offline in Turn 1 and lost a full second to SVG. That one bobble allowed the New Zealander to win by the skin of his teeth as Briscoe pressured him relentlessly on the final lap.
But the car Doran really feared was another Toyota from the Joe Gibbs Racing stable—the No. 54 Camry of Gibbs. Accordingly, Doran chose to bring SVG to pit road for fuel and tires before the end of the first two stages to regain track position at the stage break.
Conversely, Gibbs pitted after winning each of the first two stages and lost track position on the exchange. Gibbs’ car was fast enough to charge through the field, just not fast enough to catch SVG and Briscoe at the front.
“The strategy was pretty simple today,” Doran said. “We didn’t have the speed in the car to drive our way through the field. So, we just chose to flip the stages to maintain track position. I felt like a few of those cars, especially the Gibbs cars, were better than us today.
“I guess, luckily for us, they chose to take the stage points. We chose to flip the stages. Gave us a buffer to those guys, and we were able to maintain it the rest of the day.”
Bottom line? On road courses, SVG and his team can find a way to win, even with a car not to the driver’s liking.
But there are no more road or street courses left on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule this season, and SVG leaves Sonoma 14th in the standings with a slim 36-point cushion above the current cut line for the postseason Chase.
There are eight oval tracks left in the season before the Chase field is set.
“I mean, we just need to improve (on ovals),” van Gisbergen said. “I’m still the weak link as a driver, but I’ve got good teammates in the other cars, and they’re struggling as well. So, we all as a team need to improve.
“It’s just going to come through hard work and trying to emulate what the other Chevys are doing. They’ve really stepped up the last couple of months. We need to do the same.”
