NASCAR CUP SERIES
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
DAYTONA 500 MEDIA DAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES
FEBRUARY 11, 2026
Shane van Gisbergen, driver of the No. 97 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet – 2026 DAYTONA 500 Media Day Quotes:
How exactly do you prepare for a season? What kind of training stuff do you do?
“Not much, just as much preparation as I can. So going through all our notes from last year and then setup stuff and just trying to keep evolving really. I think we did evolve a lot in the second half of the year. So yeah, just trying to be as prepared as we can each week.”
Do you come in much more optimistic about your oval prospects this year than you did a year ago?
“I don’t know. I don’t really think like that. I feel like it’s just a work in progress. I feel like I’m just getting better and better. So hopefully it keeps getting better. I still feel like I learn a lot every weekend. When that stops, that’s when it gets harder, I guess.”
Can you make gains on ovals on the sim, or does that all have to come at the racetrack?
“It’s all on the racetrack. You can do some sim stuff, but I don’t feel it really helps me.”
I think your best oval finish was Kansas. Any particular reason you did better there than other places?
“I guess it was later in the year. We were just getting better and better. I think we had some races where we had better speed than that, but I didn’t get it right or we got crashed out or something. I felt like we were getting toward the top-10 more often than not at the end, which was really cool.”
NASCAR has sort of taken away the good stuff for you with the ‘win-and-you’re-in’ and took one (road course) race away at Charlotte. Do you feel like you got to work harder?
“Yeah, but I didn’t join this series to do road courses, but obviously it’s a bonus. I’d love more road courses and not less, but that is what it is. Thankfully, we’re getting better at the ovals so that’s good.”
Do you enjoy racing at the big tracks like Daytona and Talladega?
“Yes and no. When it’s fuel saving, it’s pretty boring. But when it’s flat-out racing and you’re jockeying for position and pushing a lot, it’s pretty full-on. When it’s actual racing it’s really cool.”
How do you feel about the points format overall?
“I think it’s good. I think if you’re a front-running guy consistently, I think it’s really good and more of a pure racing championship. Then I think it still keeps the balance of excitement or closing everyone up for those last 10 races. So yeah, I think it’s pretty cool. I feel like you lose the desperation a bit of people winning races to try and turn their season around. But if I was a top guy every week, I’d be all for this.”
What’s Conor Zillich shown you so far just in terms of his approach?
“I got to know him the last couple of years. He’s a brilliant young guy. He’s been pretty focused and done a lot of racing over the offseason as well. It’s gonna be interesting to see how he goes and how he fits in after a few rounds. Looking forward to working together. Hopefully we like similar setups and we can make the cars better all together.”
You talked about the setup and all that different stuff heading into the season. How different is it when you have that year in the Cup Series under your belt?
“You just learn what you want and need from a car. My driving style was very different to most, I guess. The way I make the car work or want it to work is very different to others. We noticed a lot of trends which took a while to get everyone to adjust to. I adjusted a bit but now we’re sort of coming my way a bit, which has kind of helped me. It’s interesting. The cars are set up so different to what I’m used to, and I’m still trying to understand what I need or want from the car.”
What’s your biggest focus this weekend? Your concentration on it? What are you trying not to do or to do?
“Just score as many points as possible. That’s the way we’re going to get into The Chase. So it’s my mindset straight away … just accumulate as many points as we can every week. That’s the focus now.”
When you think about racing a road course versus Daytona, how is your focus different? Do you focus differently here? And how much harder is it than say on a road course, even though you are really good at road courses?
“It’s just different here like with the qualifying and stuff. You don’t really have an influence on it. You just drive as fast as you can, close to the line as you can. But the preparation is very different. On road courses I’m more involved in setup with what I want. On the ovals I’m just kind of learning and trying to build a notebook. In these races it’s about trying to understand the flow of the race, how to work with people. It’s a completely different style of racing. That’s for sure.”
Is the drafting hard for you now? Or do you feel like you kind of got that down?
“No, I’m still learning and trying to make friends, I guess. People leave you for no reason, or you do something wrong and lose the trust of people. It takes a while to understand how to put your car in the right place.”
Now that we’re in The Chase format, do you start to view races like this one as opportunities to gain stage points and have a good points day, maybe more than last year?
“Yeah, like I said earlier, that’s our goal – to just accumulate points now. You have to try and achieve as many points as you can every weekend. It probably changes the way you take risks if you’re probably going to be like us, a guy trying to point our way in. I probably will approach it a bit different, I think.”
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