Shane Van Gisbergen is amongst the elite of NASCAR Cup Series road course racing.
With his win on Sunday at Sonoma Raceway, he now has four wins on tracks where he turns right and left since 2023 and has shown to be adept in both the Xfinity Series, based on the old NASCAR platform, and the NextGen based on the Australian Supercar where he won three championships over the past decade.
To that point, Chase Briscoe said racing him on a road course is like competing with a GOAT after finishing second at the Northern California circuit on Sunday.
“Yeah, I mean, for sure, the, really the only opportunity I had was on the restarts. I obviously never played basketball against Michael Jordan in his prime, but I feel like that’s what it was probably like,” Briscoe said of ‘SVG.’. “Yeah, that guy’s just unbelievable on road courses. Just so good. He’s really raised the bar of this entire series. Yeah, proud of the effort. I thought there was one restart I was maybe gonna get clear of him, but I mean, truthfully, he was probably gonna pass me back by the end of the lap.
“But yeah, proud of the effort. We were, you know, second-place car all day and obviously ended up second with it. So, yeah, just, man, I honestly don’t know what more I need. I feel like my car is extremely good and I feel like every time I would kind of run down Shane, he would just pick up the pace himself and start driving back away. So, yeah, it was frustrating at times, but I was honestly happy with the effort. This is by far my worst race track. So, kind of surprised myself, truthfully.”