Van Gisbergen opens up on Hill’s frustrations 

Shane van Gisbergen has revealed his post-race celebration barbs with Austin Hill in the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Sonoma.

Van Gisbergen and Richard Childress Racing’s Hill have enjoyed a rivalry starting at COTA in March and the latest episode unfolded at the front of the field at Sonoma.

The pair were side by side at the final restart with 11 laps to go and Hill edged ahead with the inside at Turn 1.

However, the Kiwi hung tough around the outside and up the hill, which presented an opportunity on the inside at the following right hander.

Van Gisbergen climbed the kerb and made side to side contact with the #2 Camaro to force his way into the lead, meanwhile his American rival dropped to fifth.

Post race Hill refused to comment on the incident, but it is now clear he showed his displeasure during the cool down lap.

In a further turn of events, the pair were again in close company on the track when SVG was in the middle of his wild celebrations.

As van Gisbergen was going his trademark skids, Hill came past and showed his displeasure.

As a result, the Kiwi revealed he turned his attention from celebrating with the crowd to cheekily frustrating his rival.

Shane van Gisbergen smokes his way past Austin Hill. Image: Fox Sports

“You want to be a good winner so I feel a bit bad in some ways because I was doing the skid at turn 2 and then he (Hill) goes past pulling the finger,” van Gisbergen told NASCAR’s Stacking Pennies podcast.

“So then I was like this is for you now and not the fans and I just followed him the whole lap.

“Then during the lap he pulled the finger, so I just gave him the thumbs up when I eventually passed him.

“I don’t feel anything against him. He knows what COTA was.”

Reflecting on the race winning move, van Gisbergen revealed how he fared at previous restarts helped him setup the Turn 2 dive and reiterated COTA was not his motivation.

“When I had priority I restarted on the left and Ty Gibbs almost got me around the outside,” van Gisbergen said.

“So I was like okay at the next restart I am going on the outside and you can then hold to have priority for the next four right handers.

“As soon as I saw he (Hill) chose the left for the final restart I thought ‘you beauty, we are in’.

“Then all I had to do was hang there enough and I knew I would be able to make a hole.

“I knew I was going to lean on him a bit but I was never going in thinking ‘you owe me from COTA’ and wrecking you.

“I knew I had to use him up to get the lead but I was not going to put him into the grandstand.”

In the post-race press conference van Gisbergen described it has ‘hard racing.’

“I was making a hole no matter what. Felt like a pretty cool move and hopefully it was good to watch,” he said.

“It was just hard racing. To me we have both taken a race win off each other now.”

Photo by LAT Images

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Shane van Gisbergen has gone back-to-back with a win in Sonoma, while his antipodean mates – Will Brown and Cam Waters – had mixed debuts in the NASCAR Cup Series… but both showed enough to stay on the radar or the US teams looking for the next Giz?

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