Deep playoff run is in the sights of Shane van Gisbergen, Trackhouse Racing

It'd be understandable if, even with his four victories, you wrote off Shane van Gisbergen as an easy first-round exit in the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs. 

The 2025 Cup Series playoffs feature only one road course — the Charlotte Roval, which serves at the cut-off race for the Round of 12 — with the first round featuring Gateway, a track van Gisbergen has never raced at, and Bristol, a track the 36-year-old driver admitted he's "terrible" at.

But with a pile of playoff points in the bank and van Gisbergen steadily getting better at ovals, a deep playoff run for the No. 88 Trackhouse Racing group is not entirely out of the question. 

"I think we have a real opportunity to get to the Round of 8, and either way it’ll be a great learning experience for him and get him prepared for making a deeper run year after year," said Trackhouse Racing owner Justin Marks in a post-race news conference on Sunday. "There’s not going to be a ton of pressure on him this year."

A contract extension that was announced on Friday ensures that 2025 will only be van Gisbergen's first taste of Cup Series racing. 

That also means that the 2025 playoffs will be, as Marks put it, an opportunity to "... learn about how things start to change in the playoffs, how teams race each other, how drivers race each other, how important points are, how you’re always looking at the cut line in the next round, and that’s going to be another great experience for him.

"I think you’ve just got to have three solid weeks and you might get through," van Gisbergen said of the Round of 16. "We just have to play the averages, make no mistakes, and make sure we’re in a good spot every week, and who knows how far we’ll get."

Since the elimination-style Cup Series playoff format was implemented in 2014, the deepest playoff runs from Cup Series rookies came from Chase Elliott in 2016 and Austin Cindric in 2022, who both advanced to the Round of 12. No Cup Series rookie has ever advanced to the Round of 8 or Championship 4, but if van Gisbergen plays his cards right, he could be on his way to making more history.  

Quotes provided by NASCAR Media unless otherwise noted.