Shane van Gisbergen lifts the lid on future battles with NASCAR sensation Connor Zilisch - “Really excited and interested”

Shane van Gisbergen, the winner of the NASCAR Cup Series race at Charlotte ROVAL, opened up about Connor Zilisch joining him at Trackhouse Racing in the 2026 season. In August 2025, Trackhouse Racing announced that Zilisch, then 19 years old, had signed a multi-year deal to drive full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series starting in 2026, replacing Daniel Suarez.

Connor Zilisch, while driving full-time for JR Motorsports in the Xfinity Series, won the regular-season championship with 10 victories to his name, 8 poles, and over 17 top-10 finishes as of the late playoffs. He was at the top of the points standings most of the time when he went on a good points run. Among other things, he suffered from a crash at Talladega and had a broken collarbone at Watkins Glen, but went on a strong recovery with numerous victories after that.

Shane van Gisbergen expressed excitement about collaborating with Connor Zilisch in the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series, describing their relationship as a "friendly competition" that will ultimately lead to the entire Trackhouse Racing team achieving success. He mentioned co-existing in the past, which led to on-track clashes scenarios, especially the incident at Watkins Glen in 2025 that led to hard racing and contact.

While speaking on Harvick Happy Hour, SVG said:

"I think we just got to keep that attitude of, you know, it's friendly competition and we have to, you know, one of the cars has to win, you know, we have to make sure the team comes first, right, and we don't want what happened at Watkins to happen all the time, because that wasn't very good, you know, so yeah, I think it's gonna, I think it's gonna be really cool. He's an awesome young guy and everything we've done with each other so far, we get along really well and bounce ideas off each other too when we've been on the sim or teammates, so yeah, I'm really excited and interested to see how it's going to go next year, but I do think it'll be really good."

Driving for Trackhouse Racing, Shane van Gisbergen was named NASCAR Rookie of the Year for 2025 and is the winningest non-American driver in Cup Series history.

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Trackhouse boss admits to Shane van Gisbergen’s steep learning curve amid swift adaptation to ovals

Trackhouse Racing boss Justin Marks candidly discussed Shane van Gisbergen’s challenging transition during his rookie season in the NASCAR Cup Series, admitting that the team “threw him to the wolves” amid a steep learning curve on oval tracks.

While van Gisbergen’s background in Australian Supercars gave him an immediate advantage on road courses, adapting to NASCAR’s unique oval racing style, especially the intricacies of draft, tire management, and restarts, proved far more rigorous. He said via Speedway Digest:

"You look at just how difficult this thing is, that people spend years and years and years of their career trying to figure out these difficult racetracks out, and we're just throwing him to the wolves and standing back and saying, Go figure it out, you have 20 minutes of practice."

Despite the initial difficulties, Shane van Gisbergen rapidly adapted and has since showcased impressive upticks in performance, most notably dominating on road and street circuits where his skills are best suited. His biggest win margins include a staggering 16.56-second triumph at Mexico City in March, followed by a 15.16-second victory margin at the Charlotte Roval in October.

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Edited by Riddhiman Sarkar