If it wasn't clear prior to the recent stretch of races on road and street courses, Shane van Gisbergen is incredibly tough to beat on them. He has won three of the last five races — all of which were on road/street courses — and now finds himself tied with Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell for the most wins in the NASCAR Cup Series this year (three).
His dominance has been evident from the moment cars have taken to the track at those venues. van Gisbergen has won the pole for each of the last three road/street course races at Mexico City, Chicago and Sonoma. On top of that, he led 60 of the 100 laps in Mexico, 26 of the 75 in Chicago and 97 of the 110 at Sonoma, which was the most a winner has led in Wine Country since Jeff Gordon paced the field for 92 laps in 2004.
But despite his success on road courses, he only has a best finish of 14th (Charlotte) on an oval this season and sits 26th in the overall points, leaving many fans to discredit his road course success and his playoff positioning.
2014 NASCAR Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick does not agree with anyone who feels that way about van Gisbergen. He made that clear on a recent episode of his Happy Hour podcast.
"So let me ask you this. He's won three races. Bell, Denny Hamlin, Larson won three races," Harvick said. "So, if you take the types of tracks off and just — they haven't won on a road course — so what's the difference? Let's just say it ends right here. I think he wins one of the two road courses that we have left. So let's just say he ends the season with four wins and five poles, and the season's over. That's a pretty successful Cup season, for anybody."
Road course racing has become part of NASCAR and shouldn't diminish what van Gisbergen is doing
While NASCAR's top series only went to two road courses each season (Sonoma, Watkins Glen) for nearly three decades, it started adding more road courses to the schedule in 2021 when the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, Circuit of The Americas and Road America were thrown into the mix.
This year alone, there are six road/street course races. That is a big jump from what the schedule used to look like, but it is by no means a regular fixture during the 36-week regular-season schedule. Some in the industry, including Brad Keselowski and Dale Earnhardt Jr., believe there are too many such layouts on the schedule, even though they only account for roughly 17 percent of the slate.
With the increase in road-course racing, and the recent dominance from van Gisbergen, the drivers themselves must improve if they are going to challenge him going forward.
van Gisbergen is the fastest driver to reach four career wins in the modern era of NASCAR (34 races), proving how quickly he has gotten acclimated to the series on road courses, given all of four of his wins have come on those layouts.
His performance has not been great on ovals yet, but he continues to show signs of improvement. Harvick took note and said he believes van Gisbergen will improve in that area going forward. If he does continue to improve on ovals, that is a scary thought for the rest of the field given his road course prowess.
Yes, ovals are still the primary focus in NASCAR and should be. However, road courses are a part of the schedule today just like they have been for years. There are certainly more of them, which understandably frustrates some of the fanbase. For van Gisbergen, this is the schedule that is in front of him and he is doing exactly what Trackhouse Racing owner Justin Marks expected him to when he signed him as a full-time driver.
The number of road course races is certainly debatable, but van Gisbergen's success and playoff advantage he has earned should not be discredited when the rest of the field has had plenty time to improve and take those wins away.