NASCAR CUP SERIES
CIRCUIT OF THE AMERICAS
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES
FEBRUARY 27, 2026
Shane van Gisbergen, driver of the No. 97 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet and the No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet, met with the media in advance of running double-duty in the NASCAR Cup and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series at Circuit of The Americas.
Media Availability Quotes:
I’m sure you’ve seen the stats, but if you win this week, you’ll tie Jeff Gordon for the most road courses in a row. What would that mean to you?
“Yeah, first, afternoon, everyone. Yeah, it’d be pretty cool. Kevin Harvick, I did an interview with him the other day, and he brought that up, so it’d be cool to do that. Very different time with a lot more races per year, but I guess as a crew, last year we had an amazing year and it’d be awesome to carry that on this year.”
It seems like at COTA, you’re human, you haven’t won here yet… so what makes this place so tricky?
“Yeah, it’s a tough track, and I think it’s also an easy track. You see the gaps between cars are a lot closer, so it’s more down to executing, not making mistakes and qualifying well. I think you don’t see a big field spread like other tracks, talent-wise. And last year, COTA was only the third or fourth race again, too. So yeah, very new crew within Trackhouse. I made some mistakes. We weren’t quite there yet as a team early in the year, so hopefully that compounds and we’re a bit stronger this year.”
With the change to the Chase, as opposed to the “win and you’re in”, on road courses, do you anticipate any different decisions, where people are going to pit early to try to make a contention for the win late, as opposed to staying up and getting points in the stages?
“Yeah, it’ll definitely change that dynamic. And especially on this track, you have a short amount of time really that you have to be close to the leader to have that extra lap to decide if you’re going to pit or not, so hopefully you’re in the lead or close and you can decide. But it’s definitely going to change, I think, how many people flip stages. You know, the points are so important this year, and it might even change us. If we’re not the dominant car, you might sacrifice the stage to get the points. Yeah, it’s all about points accumulation for us this year.”
On a wildly different note, I know when you were in New Zealand doing a competition with ‘Mad’ Mike Whiddett and Liam Lawson. I was just curious, is that the first time that you’ve jumped a lawnmower?
“On a lawnmower? Yeah, and I wouldn’t recommend that (laughs). But it was a lot of fun playing around with those guys. At Red Bull, we do some pretty cool stuff. It was awesome.”
I think of you as at least somewhat of a semi-private person, and you opened your life up to this documentary that’s coming out. Was that hard for you to sort of open up on everything… your family and have all that stuff out there?
“Yeah, I don’t really like doing it, I guess. In this day and age, people have so much access to you. I love people knowing more about my racing life, but I love going away, going home and no one knowing what I do, as well, is kind of cool.
There’s still some things you like to keep private, but it was cool to show off our cars, I guess; my relationship with Dad and how much fun we still have hanging out. Yeah, I think he talked a lot about mom and stuff, so yeah, it was pretty cool…. (inaudible).”
I just want to get your general thoughts on the track here (at COTA). We touched on it earlier, you won on every road course last year except for this one, so does that make you even hungrier to win here?
“Yeah, I do like the track. I love coming here. The weather’s a bit nicer than where we’re living. But yeah, it’s an odd track with how much grip is off the track. You know, you see everyone blowing the corners to try and get the grip off the track. It’s very different the way you drive. The restart zone is pretty chaotic into turn one… how wide it is, you know, it’s crazy. But yeah, we just have to hopefully have two good races and try and get some results.
But yeah, I like the place, I just haven’t managed to put a whole race together. I think every race I’ve done here in NASCAR, I’ve been reasonably quick, but for one reason or another, I haven’t managed to get it done.”
Have you had a chance to enjoy Austin while you’re here? Maybe food, music, you name it…
“Yeah, we’re going to Trackhouse Live tonight in town to have a look. I remember when I was here for the V8 Supercars race, I stayed an extra few days and went to some barbecue places and some hot rod shops. It was cool. But yeah, nowadays, we’re kind of in and out. It’s hard to look around, but I don’t mind this place.”
You mentioned, of course, the track is shortened. You’ve seen races here on the full course. Do you prefer one over the other?
“I like the short track, yeah. The long track was great, too. But I think doing more laps, you get more chances to pass the crowd and better passing opportunities, too. It’s a lot more technical, I think, the sections that they’ve done. We haven’t really missed much by doing a shorter track, so I think it was a good thing. I think it was a good thing they listened and did the next cut through rather than the one we did in Supercars. It made for some pretty good racing and good passing last year.”
There’s no secret about the expectation that this is going to be a duel between you and Connor (Zilisch). I was wondering if you could kind of size up that matchup. And also, who else do you expect to be really at the front? You know, Tyler (Reddick) is going for history, and he’s won here before…
“Yeah, I think on road course weekends, I find there’s probably six to eight guys that you see consistently up there and guys that are really highly good to race. You just don’t know in NASCAR. Everything’s so close. It’s who nails it on the weekend with preparation. And, yeah, there’s always some good drivers up front.
And with Connor (Zilisch), it’s exciting, too. Pretty cool talent coming into this level now and obviously in the same equipment as me, too, so it’s going to be good. And as Justin (Marks) said in the meeting we had earlier in the week, we’re in a pretty cool position as a team. It’s special. We’ve got to take advantage of it and make sure we get it right and one of us needs to win, which would be cool.”
This new 750 horsepower package, somewhat similar to the old Supercar days. Is that going to play in your wheelhouse, or do you still need some more practice with the 750 to figure out how close it’s going to be?
“No, the Supercar had less, actually. They had 640, 650. But, yeah, I haven’t really noticed it so far. At Bowman Gray, you couldn’t really use the power, I guess. But, yeah, with tomorrow being hot and slick, you’ll probably notice the power then and certainly fight for rear tire life. But, yeah, I don’t know. I haven’t really noticed it so far.”
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