After his electrifying Cup Series debut in 2023 at the Chicago Street Course — where he became the first driver to win his first career race since 1963 — Shane Van Gisbergen became NASCAR’s most anticipated full-time rookie in 2024.
And by and large, SVG hasn’t disappointed.
Now that he’s headed to the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs as the No. 5 seed in the 12-driver field, it’s a good time to check in on Van Gisbergen’s progress as a NASCAR regular: What have we learned about his development as a driver, and what might it tell us about his chances in both the 2024 Xfinity playoffs and the Cup Series down the line?
Here are four takeaways from SVG’s rookie campaign:
He is the best road-course driver in Xfinity — by far
The Xfinity Series has had five races at road (or street) courses in 2024 so far. Of those, Kyle Larson won the first one in one of his only starts in the series, Connor Zilisch won the most recent one in his Xfinity debut … and Van Gisbergen took the other three. At one point, SVG had a trifecta of consecutive road-course victories going — and he’s still on a run of five top fives in his past six road races, between Xfinity and Cup.
Van Gisbergen’s immediate Cup win at Chicago last summer was no fluke for the three-time Supercars champion. There’s a reason why SVG is the most feared competitor in the Xfinity Series — if not all of NASCAR — on road and street courses. Just in Xfinity alone, he has an Adjusted Points+ index of 294 on those types of tracks, meaning he was 194 percent better than the average driver. Among series regulars in 2024, nobody else is even remotely close: Parker Kligerman is second with an index of 200, followed by AJ Allmendinger and Austin Hill at 182 apiece.
Van Gisbergen isn’t perfect on road courses; no one is. (At the Cup level, his mistake in the esses at Watkins Glen opened the door for Chris Buescher to re-pass him for the win just two weeks ago.) But SVG has earned his reputation for dominating the same types of tracks where he excelled for years in touring cars in Australia.
He’s not bad on ovals — or drafting tracks
As nice as it is to be feared at road courses, those still make up only 18 percent of the Xfinity Series schedule and just 14 percent of the tracks in the Cup Series, where Van Gisbergen is set to drive the No. 88 full-time for Trackhouse Racing next season. By contrast, regular ovals comprise roughly half of tracks in both series, with restrictor-plate/drafting tracks making up another 15 to 20 percent — which means a driver won’t get very far in NASCAR without an aptitude for turning left at very high speeds.
The good news for SVG is that he has been above average in both types of tracks this season. His Adjusted Points+ index at Xfinity Series ovals is 105 — 5 percent better than average — and his index at drafting tracks is 108 — 8 percent above average. Among regulars with 20 or more races in the series, that ranks him 14th out of 26 drivers at ovals and 11th out of 26 drivers at drafting tracks.
He’s generally getting better, too. On ovals, for instance, the five-race rolling average of his Adjusted Points index is currently 29 percent better than the Xfinity Series norm, his best five-race stretch of the season on intermediate tracks. That includes a pair of top 10s at Indianapolis and Darlington — and finishing no worse than the 17th-place showing he posted at Michigan, after previously finishing no better than 15th in any of his seven prior oval races.
His consistency needs work
Having said all of that, SVG’s performance has still varied a lot across the entire season. He is one of only three Xfinity Series regulars to finish at least 25 percent of their races in the top 10, 25 percent between 11th and 20th place, and 25 percent in 21st or worse. (The other two? Riley Herbst and Brandon Jones.)
That applies to SVG across many different track types, too. While all three of his wins were at road courses, he also scored a 27th in March at COTA after a 30-second penalty for violating track limits. He has three top 10s on ovals, but also a pair of finishes outside the top 30. He finished third in February at Atlanta, but also has an average finish of 21.5 in his other races at drafting-style tracks.
And in perhaps the biggest area where he needs improvement, SVG has an Adjusted Points+ index of just 77 (23 percent worse than average) at short tracks in his first year as a full-time Xfinity driver. It’s a small sample, of course — just four races. But he has zero top 10s and a 34th-place finish (at Iowa, one of his worst runs of the season), making this the worst track type of Van Gisbergen’s rookie effort as a NASCAR full-timer.
That probably shouldn’t be surprising. Short track racing is a specialized skill that many regulars in the Xfinity and Cup series come up learning at local race tracks across America, an educational process that Van Gisbergen simply didn’t have access to as he was growing up racing karts and motorbikes, before transitioning to touring cars. It’s pretty impressive that he has even held his own on those types of tracks in his first real exposure to them this season.
He could still be a factor in the Xfinity playoffs
The next tracks on the Xfinity Series schedule line up to give Van Gisbergen a decent chance to at least make some noise in the playoffs.
For one thing, he will get to run a road course, in the form of the Charlotte Roval, to close out the Round of 12. Given his incredible win rate on that track type this season — three victories in five tries, plus an additional top five — he will automatically be a threat to move on at least one round before the road courses dry up for good this season.
But it’s also worth mentioning that the first round contains an oval (Kansas) and a plate track (Talladega), both track types where SVG has been above-average as a rookie. Combine that with a good stash of playoff points from the regular season, and Van Gisbergen isn’t set up badly to start the Xfinity playoffs.
The Round of 8 is looking less promising, with no road courses — and a short track serving as the elimination race. So SVG may have to level up at his weakest track type in order to make a real run to the Championship 4. But if he does make it that far, it should be pointed out that SVG scored a sixth-place finish at Phoenix in early March, in just his fourth career Xfinity Series race. Given how much he’s improved since then, he could be dangerous if his title hopes are still alive by then.
To be clear, the betting odds still consider SVG to be a long shot for the Xfinity championship. Various different sportsbooks list him among the least likely winners heading into the playoffs — far from favorites like Chandler Smith, Cole Custer and Justin Allgaier.
If we zoom out on the big picture, however, Van Gisbergen’s first full-time season in stock cars has to be considered a big success. He has three wins (yes, all at road courses), six top fives and eight top 10s in 26 races, with an Adjusted Points+ index 38 percent better than the series average. For a guy trying to replicate the road-course-ringer-to-regular path of names like Marcos Ambrose, AJ Allmendinger, Juan Pablo Montoya, Robby Gordon and Boris Said, that means SVG is already off to a rolling start in his full-time NASCAR career.