With road courses done and dusted for the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season, the field finally gets some reprieve from the dominance of Trackhouse Racing’s Shane van Gisbergen.
SVG, who didn’t get what he was looking for at Naval Base Coronado after being involved in the turn 1 carnage crash, was perceived as “having one shot” to rectify things before heading back to the ovals.
From being below the cut line entering the weekend to victory lane in Wine Country on Sunday (June 28) at Sonoma Raceway, SVG is now up 36 points with eight regular season races to go. But is it enough? Christopher Hansen and Thomas Dunn break that down on 2-Headed Monster.
Yes, But He’s Going to Have to Earn His Spot
When Shane van Gisbergen first burst onto the NASCAR scene, nobody knew what to expect from a driver that had never set foot behind the wheel of a NASCAR stock car.
He took the Cup Series stars to school, winning NASCAR’s first ever street course race in the sports’ history. While all of his Cup wins, including last weekend at Sonoma Raceway, have been on road courses, the Auckland, New Zealand, native has shown remarkable improvement on the intermediate ovals. While some of the series’ intermediate tracks still give him trouble, it’s only a matter of time before SVG transforms into one of the series’ most well-rounded drivers.
Van Gisbergen’s true breakout performance this season in oval racing came during the Coca-Cola 600, the longest race on the Cup Series schedule. That night, SVG showed speed all night, finishing inside the top 10 through the first three stages. Late in the race, a strategy call from crew chief Stephen Doran gave van Gisbergen an opportunity to win before he faded in the closing laps to 11th.
The next week at Nashville Superspeedway, SVG once again showed his improved performance on ovals, running up front and leading laps before scoring a fifth-place finish, his best overall finish at an intermediate track in his Cup career. Despite a 30th-place finish at Michigan International Speedway and 31st-place at Pocono Raceway in recent weeks, van Gisbergen has shown that recent results on ovals are more than enough to justify him earning a spot in this year’s Chase.
While road courses are where he’s found success during his Cup career, SVG’s improved oval performances will help him hold on for a spot in the postseason. While he missed out on a potential victory at Naval Base Coronado two weeks ago, a dominant win at Sonoma last weekend allowed SVG to climb to 14th in The Chase standings, 36 points ahead of 17th-place Erik Jones.
Entering this weekend’s race at Chicagoland Speedway, van Gisbergen holds a 23-point gap over 15th-place Ryan Preece and sits 24 points ahead of Austin Cindric, the final driver in the current Chase standings. Eight races remain until the 16-driver Chase field is finalized, meaning that van Gisbergen is going to be in a duel to score one of the final postseason spots.
With superspeedway tracks EchoPark Speedway and a return to Daytona International Speedway on the horizon, SVG is going to face some of the toughest competition for a Chase spot. With former Cup champions Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano among those on the outside looking in with The Chase approaching, the fight for the final positions in the postseason are going to come down to the final laps at Daytona.
Even though his two wins were on road courses, van Gisbergen is more than capable of putting together a solid stretch of races on the remaining intermediate ovals, ultimately leading to an appearance in The Chase in 2026. – Christopher Hansen
2026 Serves as the Bump Needed for Consistent Greatness
It’s a lot to ask someone who is still developing his oval racing prowess in Shane van Gisbergen to execute on all accounts down the stretch of this regular season. The circumstances, even with a driver who has proven to be adaptable across a multitude of racing mediums, are tough against the best oval competition there is.
When he was caught up in the wreck at Naval Base Coronado, it took away a massive opportunity to build that security despite SVG not having fault in the first place.
For me, the schedule has a lot of land mines that both he and his opponents have to face. Chicagoland is a wild card given the time away from the track since 2019, but Brad Keselowski has won there, and drivers such as Erik Jones also have experience.
From the superspeedway perspective, EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta and Daytona International Speedway provide unquantifiable levels of chaos for SVG, especially with a points gap that could be evaporated in the snap of one race. There’s so much unknown, and that’s before we get to tracks where he’s still learning to develop.
Iowa Speedway was a miserable time last year for SVG, including multiple spin outs at a track where he had only turned 86 laps prior in an O’Reilly Auto Parts Series car before wrecking in 2024.
However, it’s not all doom and gloom.
Beyond the box score, SVG has showcased good performances on speed in his Cup career both at Richmond Raceway and New Hampshire Motor Speedway. In the Northeast, he was running top 10 on merit before getting wrecked, while down in Southern Virginia, he’s one of the drivers who can save tires while running the higher groove.
So when we discuss the calculus, there’s certainly some upside not only from the development perspective but also the unknown. He’s no doubt already among the best road racers in Cup Series history, but this final stretch of the regular season is going to test the scope of his and his team’s process.
For me, there’s too much variance in play to think he’s going to make The Chase with only a 36-point cushion to his name. It’s certainly not helping that Trackhouse is not bringing speed to the track on a consistent basis this year, and it’s why 2026 will more or less serve as the necessary adversity that many have faced in their time in NASCAR before they take the next leap in their Cup Series journey. – Thomas Dunn
Thomas is in his second year covering NASCAR at Frontstretch. A Bay Area NASCAR fan for over 15+ years, he found his love for the sport through Jeff Gordon. He helps manage the 2-Headed Monster Column.
Thomas has enjoyed several trips to Sonoma Raceway in his time and currently covers college athletics in the Bay Area, writing about the California Golden Bears and doing play by play broadcasting.
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