DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Trackhouse Racing has fashioned a Daytona 500 driver roster with international fabric this year, with map pins in four parts of the globe to represent each driver’s home country. The lineup for the Justin Marks-owned team has the chance to cultivate some added worldwide attention to NASCAR’s most prestigious race, but it also has the potential to create interesting differences in dialect.
“Just amazing what Justin and Trackhouse have achieved, and to have such a diverse lineup at a race like this is epic,” said Shane van Gisbergen, hailing from New Zealand in the No. 88 Chevrolet. “Four different nationalities. We’re probably going to be talking about loose and tight and understeer and oversteer in different languages, but probably meaning the same thing.”
Making sure the communication and performance both have a smooth flow will be the focus for Trackhouse, which will put four entries on the track for the first time in Sunday’s season-opening Daytona 500 (1:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Returning drivers Ross Chastain (United States) and Daniel Suárez (Mexico) will work alongside newly minted full-timer van Gisbergen and heralded first-timer Hélio Castroneves, a Brazilian veteran with four Indianapolis 500 wins in his column.
The foremost change for Trackhouse’s new look is the rise to a full Cup Series schedule for van Gisbergen, the 35-year-old Australian SuperCars circuit transplant. That ascension has come quickly, making “SVG” a phenomenon with recognition by initials alone – from a winning splash in 2023 at the inaugural Chicago Street Race to a three-win season last year in his first full Xfinity Series slate. That rapid stateside development has mimicked Trackhouse’s growth – from plucky single-car team in 2021 to a winning two-car organization a year later, to a three-car fleet this year.
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Van Gisbergen joins 23XI Racing newcomer Riley Herbst in the Cup Series’ Sunoco Rookie of the Year contest for 2025. Getting a quick launch to the campaign remains an SVG priority.
“It would be amazing,” van Gisbergen says. “If you can just get ahead of the points, settle in. I always love to start championships being an accumulator, sort of. That was my sort of strategy. Even in the weeks where you can’t be up front, get the best results you can, minimize mistakes. If we start well, get in a good rhythm, everyone stays positive, that really gets you off to a good start for the year.”
Building that foundation has involved shaping a new routine for his increased workload on the Cup Series side. Van Gisbergen says that’s meant working alongside Chastain and Suárez in their racing-simulator time and keeping open notes among the three. “It’s a pretty cool dynamic at the moment,” says SVG, who adds that he has enjoyed learning from the variety of perspectives.
“With the Clash and All-Star (exhibitions), he’s got 38 at-bats to show up at the race track and prepare,” Chastain said. “The way we do it at Trackhouse, we’ve evolved. The 1 (himself) and 99 (Suárez) used to do it a certain way, but now with three teams every week we’ve evolved that, and I like it a lot better. It’s more driver-focused. Shane and I are literally from opposite sides of the world, but we think about things in a similar way but we’re just different enough where he can call me out on my issues and I can call him out on his.
“The early-morning sim sessions together is the name of the game for us. I don’t know what the end results will be each week. It’s easy to look at and see it – he’s helping on road courses, and I hope to help him on ovals.”
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Van Gisbergen’s stock-car magnificence in road-course events pulls a page from his title-winning pedigree on those circuits, and all four of his NASCAR national-series wins have come at that track type. SVG is barely a year and a half removed from his oval-track debut — Aug. 11, 2023 at Indianapolis Raceway Park in the Craftsman Truck Series — and that sort of speedway remains a developing skill. With just one road course among the first 15 races of the Cup Series season, the fast start that van Gisbergen craves will need some oval positives to arrive in short order.
“We have to be realistic, right?” says Suárez, who is bullish on recent personnel moves improving Trackhouse’s overall performance level. “Shane is going to have … he has a long ways to go when it comes to ovals, and we know that. He has a lot of things that he has to learn and to continue to get better at ovals, and he’s going to rely on Ross and myself a lot when it comes to that.”
Suárez had a confession about his new full-time teammate as the drivers made the rounds during Media Day rotations at Daytona International Speedway.
“A lot of people don’t know this, but I have a very hard time understanding Shane,” Suárez said. “I don’t know if you guys do the same or not, but my English clearly is way more limited than most of you guys, and every time that he’s talking to me, I really have to pay attention, and 80% of the time, I have to have him repeat something, because his accent is just way different than what I’m used to.”
When asked if van Gisbergen understood his accent, Suárez said with a laugh, “I hope. He hasn’t complained. But no, it’s been great. Obviously, Trackhouse has been known for the last several years to do things like this, so I’m not surprised having teammates from New Zealand and another one from Brazil, and myself. I guess Ross is the outlier right now. It’s been a lot of fun. Hopefully we can translate that to good results on Sunday.”