New look for growing van Gisbergen

By Thomas Miles

Date posted: 26 June 2025

Shane van Gisbergen is growing in confidence as he prepares for Atlanta before a Chicago double.

This weekend van Gisbergen will hope to carry on a solid run of results, highlighted by his Mexico win, when the NASCAR Cup Series heads to Atlanta Motor Speedway.

But after his dominant victory at the home of the Mexican Grand Prix, everyone knows the Trackhouse Racing Kiwi will be tough to beat at the Chicago Street Race, which is also on the horizon.

Van Gisbergen will have the chance to chase two wins as he does the Xfintiy Series and Cup Series double at the street race.

To mark his return to the second-tier championship in the #9, van Gisbergen will race with a special double livery that features a mix of WeatherTech and Red Bull colours.

For long-running van Gisbergen fans, it will be a reminder of his early Supercars days where he raced a half-half livery with Stone Brothers Racing in the 2009 enduros.

But before then, van Gisbergen will take on the Quaker State 400 this weekend at Atlanta.

In addition to his Mexico victory, van Gisbergen could also be encouraged by his performance at Pocono where he matched his personal best qualifying on an oval with 23rd.

As a result, SVG feels the momentum going his way as he gains more experience in his rookie Cup Series campaign.

“You can feel the confidence in the team and the pit crew guys,” van Gisbergen said.

“Everyone is just uplifted the last few weeks, especially after the win.

“Not that everyone was down, but it was a bit of a grind. Last weekend in Pocono wasn’t very good, but things have started to come a lot easier over the last few weeks.

“Our pit stop averages are much quicker. All the simple things are getting a lot better.

“My restarts are finally in the positive, with it being well negative for the first half of the year.

“We seem to be getting a lot better in every single area so it’s been fun.”

Atlanta is the first double up of the 2025 season after van Gisbergen finished 23rd in the second race of the year.

It is an oval he enjoys having secured his best oval result of his Xfinity Series 2024 campaign with third.

“I like Atlanta. I led some laps there earlier in the year,” van Gisbergen said.

“We didn’t have much speed in qualifying, but in the race we were running pretty well until the field wrecked on the last lap and we got collected. Anything can happen on the drafting tracks.

“They are a bit full on when the field is racing three-wide and sending it.

“But if we can keep our WeatherTech Chevy clean all race, we should get a decent result.”

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New look for growing van Gisbergen

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