Shane van Gisbergen’s promising start at Las Vegas turned into a ‘frustrating’ day

Shane van Gisbergen rued a 'frustrating end' to the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The Trackhouse Racing driver faced a late-race contact that sent him spinning and outside the running order.

SVG began three places short of the top 10, but steadily made his way to the front by Stage 3. At his best, he was running among the top five during a restart on lap 245 of the 267-lap race.

However, the same restart proved disastrous for the No.88 driver. Ty Gibbs slotted behind Alex Bowman on the third row, and his right rear made contact with the left front of Christopher Bell, which sent him spinning into SVG's No.88 Chevy. The two drivers crashed into the walls and retired from the race altogether.

Reflecting upon the same, van Gisbergen spoke to NBC Sports and said,

"Frustrating end to the day. My Chevy was so good there at the start, then towards the end it was a bit tight but we were still in a position to get a good finish. Wish our result would’ve shown the race we had. Proud of my 88 team for bringing another rocket ship.”

Shane van Gisbergen's DNF marked him 33rd on the grid. Notably, the Kiwi driver was coming off a win in the previous race at Charlotte Roval. It was his fifth consecutive road course win.

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Shane van Gisbergen disagrees with Denny Hamlin's claim

Denny Hamlin recently addressed Shane van Gisbergen's road course wins and argued that SVG is the greatest road course racer of all time. Per his view, prime Jeff Gordon wouldn't be able to beat van Gisbergen in the current Next Gen package. He noted that Gordon ran a superior Hendrick Motorsports car than the rest of the field at the time.

SVG, however, couldn't accept Hamlin's take.

“I don't agree with it, but it's pretty amazing that my peers think that of me. I had some amazing races this year on the road course. My car is obviously very good as well, so thank you to Trackhouse,” he said via Youtube/Frontstretch “But yeah, I'd hopefully race these guys better on ovals, and they start thinking of me (as) a serious competitor on ovals. But pretty humbling for them to say that,” he added.

Shane van Gisbergen's Charlotte win marked the second time he crossed the finish line with a 15-second margin. The previous occurrence was at Mexico City, where he finished 16.567 seconds ahead.

This made him the first driver since Bobby Allison in 1982 to win multiple races with over a 15-second margin. Denny Hamlin also noted that Gordon could never win with such a gap.

On the other hand, SVG is showing signs of improvement on oval tracks. In the recent playoff race at Kansas Speedway, SVG had his best result in an oval with a tenth-place finish.

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Edited by Vignesh Kanna