Shane van Gisbergen evaluates progress on NASCAR ovals, trying to keep up with Ross Chastain

Shane van Gisbergen is a road-course racing savant. However, when it comes to ovals since going full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, he’s struggled a bit.

Locked into the playoffs with two wins after notching a victory in Chicago this past weekend, SVG may have some time to lock in and try to improve at the more traditional track type over the course of the summer. He evaluated his progress during an appearance on Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour earlier this week.

“I think we’re getting a lot better,” van Gisbergen told Harvick, regarding his performance on NASCAR’s more traditional tracks. “The last couple of months, we’ve really stepped up. I was probably a little bit too conservative at the start of the year, especially in qualifying. Then you start at the back and there’s no air back there, with downforce and stuff, but I didn’t feel like I was forcing it. I wasn’t making too many mistakes, just kind of happy to be there, drive around and learn as much as I could.

“The last few weeks, I’ve sort of been taking more risk, particularly in qualifying, and I kind of feel like we’re on the back of that midfield now. It’s only a tenth or two to the back of the top ten in qualifying. It feels like we’re a lot closer. Especially to my teammates, as well. I try, because some weeks we miss it a little bit with the car and I’m racing my teammates in the mid-twenties, so I kind of have to gauge off that.

“Ross has this amazing ability, particularly late in the race, to get an amazing result out of a car that’s P20. He’ll drag it well inside the top ten. So I definitely need to get better at my restarts and car placement like him. Certainly, I feel like I’m getting a lot better. I find tracks like Bristol are still — that was a really tough track for me.

“The Darlingtons and mile-and-a-halves — Michigan, I felt competitive and confident to move around and search for air, whereas sometimes I haven’t been. So, I feel like I’m getting better.”

Perhaps learning from his teammate in Ross Chastain will help SVG in the long run. The fellow Trackhouse Racing star has become one of NASCAR’s best, and he’s a threat on any track — he proved that during the Coca-Cola 600 back in May.

While Shane van Gisbergen will get to enjoy another road course this weekend in Sonoma, it’ll be paramount to his championship dreams to improve at NASCAR’s other tracks over the rest of the summer. Whether or not he’s able to could be the difference between making a run at a title or exiting the playoffs early this fall.