Confirmation that Shane van Gisbergen has locked in a full-time drive in the NASCAR Cup Series for 2025 is a significant one – here we break down what it means and what his chances are as he steps up to stock car racing’s elite level.

SVG’s NASCAR Story to Date

After his victory in his NASCAR debut in Chicago last year, things have moved fast.

A double-duty weekend in Indianapolis in the Truck Series and Cup followed, and then it was announced that he would be moving to America to compete in a mixed program of Cup, Xfinity, and the Truck Series.

That September 14 news was superseded on December 13 when he was locked in for a full year of Xfinity competition with the gun Kaulig Racing outfit, while it also was revealed that he would run a limited Cup program in Kaulig’s number 16, a shared ride with the likes of AJ Allmendinger, Josh Williams, Derek Kraus and Ty Dillon.

To qualify for the season-opening event at Daytona, van Gisbergen made a cameo start in the companion ARCA event.

Subsequently, SVG’s Xfinity Series season to date has been blockbuster.

After breaking through with his maiden victory at Portland International Raceway, he backed up the next week with another win at Sonoma, while he played with his food in winning at Chicago.

Select ovals have shown strong promise, too – 12^th on debut at Daytona was followed up by third at Atlanta, sixth at Phoenix, 11^th at Martinsville and fourth at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Typically, on the ovals, even if he has qualified at the back, he has stayed out of trouble, logged laps, improved and learned.

It’s the sort of stuff you would expect from a 35-year-old rookie.

While he currently sits 12^th in the standings, his three victories have him leading the season, with his 17 bonus points earned to date placing him second in the playoff standings behind experienced hand Justin Allgaier.

To date, SVG’s Cup Series schedule with Kaulig Racing has seen him enter races that would best position him for future success.

Outside of the road courses at Circuit of the Americas and the Chicago Street Circuit, he has raced at Charlotte in the Coke 600, the longest race on the schedule, plus the superspeedways at Talladega and Daytona.

Additionally, it was announced last week that his Cup program will expand to encompass seven of the last 12 races of the season.

SVG will compete this weekend at Darlington, then Atlanta, Watkins Glen, Talladega, Las Vegas and Martinsville, while the Xfinity Series will take in Darlington, Atlanta, Watkins Glen, Bristol, Kansas, Talladega, the Charlotte Roval, Las Vegas, Homestead, Martinsville and Phoenix.

While the repeated double-duty weekends may take some of the attention away from his Xfinity Series title tilt, his program is clearly being designed around his future prospects at the Cup level.

Outside of his on-track accomplishments, van Gisbergen appears much happier with life – for a person who loves to race, the opportunity to take to the track 44 times a year is a step up from 12 Supercars race weekends.

He has truly opened up with the media, while taking on board Cup Series champion and current Fox Sports analyst Kevin Harvick as his manager and mentor has been a masterstroke.

Additionally, he has absolutely endeared himself to the North American fanbase – from his gutsy driving to drift skid celebrations and rad burnouts, to punting rugby balls into the crowd post-victory, he is kicking goals on and off track.

Trackhouse Racing

Owned by racer come entrepreneur Justin Marks, entertainer Pitbull and new partner Avenue Sports Fund, Trackhouse Racing is a squad on a mission to disrupt the norm.

In 2021, the team stepped up to Cup with a single-car effort for Mexican Daniel Suarez before it acquired Chip Ganassi Racing, a move that included top-tier Chevrolet backing.

From simulator time to all-important setup information and more, it is a crucial cornerstone to the team’s success that places the team on the same level as the sport’s powerhouses.

For 2022, the squad signed on Ross Chastain, whose aggressive on-track nature placed him at the top of headlines, with his season capped with the incredible “Hail Melon” move around the wall at Martinsville to lock his way into the season finale, where he claimed second in the ultimate season standings.

Chastain now has four wins with the team in Cup, Suarez two, and van Gisbergen one, from his debut with the team in Chicago last year.

The move to expand to three cars next year is a significant one.

NASCAR operates on a charter system, not dissimilar to the one used in Supercars – with chartered entries ensured a starting place and the lion’s share of the prize pool.

However, the charters have been the subject of intense scrutiny behind closed doors, with teams having to sign on for a new agreement for 2025 in line with the sport’s new seven-year media deal with Fox, NBC, Amazon and TNT Sports, worth around US$7.7 billion.

The teams have been arguing for a greater slice of the revenue and other securities, like making the charters permanent, while NASCAR is seemingly protective of maintaining the status quo, where the bulk of income to the sport is siphoned to the circuits.

Coincidently, NASCAR owns 12 of the venues on the calendar, plus Auto Club Speedway, which is being redeveloped, and Chicagoland Speedway, which the downtown street circuit has replaced.

While charters have traded for up to US$ 40 million a pop last year, in the current climate of uncertainty, it is believed those values have come down, with the market being flooded with three charters following the contraction of Stewart Haas Racing from four cars to one.

Confirmation of the drive and the charter deal seal some certainty for the squad.

The team had an embarrassment of riches when it came to drivers – Chastain and Suarez were fully in-house cars, van Gisbergen was on loan to Kaulig for his racing activities this season, Zane Smith was also loaned out to Spire Motorsport for his rookie year in the Cup series, while new recruit Connor Zilisch has recently been confirmed for a full season in Dale Earnhardt Jr’s number 88 Xfinity Series car in 2025.

To ease the log jam of drivers, Smith has been released from his contract this week.

Coincidently, van Gisbergen will run the number 88 in the Cup Series, the same number famously carried by Hall of Famers Earnhardt Jr, Dale Jarrett, Darrell Waltrip, Ricky Rudd, Tim Flock, Rusty Wallace, Bobby and Donnie Allison, Buck Baker, Joe Weatherly plus Jeff Gordon as a substitute for Earnhardt Jr, as well as Benny Parsons, Geoff Bodine, Buddy Baker, Ralph Earnhart, Tiny Lund and Fireball Roberts.

In a sport where drivers are intrinsically linked to their number, it’s a big legacy to carry on.

This year, Trackhouse Racing made the sideways step into MotoGP, fielding an Aprilia outfit for riders Raúl Fernández and Miguel Oliveira.

Also coming under the Trackhouse banner is the Trackhouse Motorplex located at Moorseville, near the hub of all things NASCAR in North Carolina.

Regarded as one of the best karting facilities in North America, on any given weekday, you could see the sport’s elite testing and tuning their skills on the track.

Road Courses

The beauty of the NASCAR Playoff System’s ‘win and you’re in’ concept, is that even if you are having a somewhat difficult season in the point standings, one win can absolutely change everything, as victories will catapult you into the season-ending top 16 playoffs.

Exhibit A is last-start winner Harrison Burton, who was recently fired from his Wood Brothers Racing ride – after his victory at Daytona, the second-generation racer remains 34^th and last of the full-time drivers in the season standings.

He is now going to finish, at worst, 16^th in the final points.

In the Cup Series, the Playoffs consist of three rounds of three races, where four drivers are eliminated in each segment before the winner-takes-all finale in Phoenix.

From a team’s perspective, making the Playoffs alone is a multi-million-dollar bonus, with end-of-season and ongoing performance payments very much skewed to those who find success on the racetrack.

While the NASCAR season has traditionally featured two road course races – at Sonoma and Watkins Glen, the quality of racing at those venues has seen the schedule morph also to include the Circuit of the Americas, the Chicago Street Course, and the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval hybrid road course/oval.

Importantly, those final two rounds are scheduled in the first two rounds of the Playoffs, which, if the calendar stays along a similar path, would absolutely play into the hands of a road course ace like van Gisbergen.

Additionally, today, another road course has been added to the schedule in Mexico at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, replacing the second event at Richmond.

Once again, this is to SVG’s advantage – the prime evidence of that is his breakthrough win in Chicago last year, which was a venue that was new to the sport.

There’s not often a level playing field, but when there is one, you must take the opportunity with both hands.

Another ace up van Gisbergen’s sleeve is the NASCAR Next Gen car, which borrows many architectural traits from Supercars’ ruleset.

One of the significant factors working against rookies in the Cup series, however, is a lack of testing and also a schedule largely devoid of in-weekend practice – typically, if you haven’t figured things out in the simulator, you’re in strife come race day.

While road courses will play into van Gisbergen’s hands, the other wildcard in the mix is Superspeedways, where anyone can legitimately claim a victory on any given race day.

The schedule has six ‘drafting’ type events, two each at Daytona, Talladega, and the recently reconfigured Atlanta.

Therefore, without any other factors considered, van Gisbergen could be a legitimate threat at 11 of the 36 events on the schedule.

Then there are one-off rounds at Indianapolis, Pocono and Michigan, which race entirely differently to the specialised 1.5-mile cookie-cutter ovals and mix of short ovals, with SVG having acquitted himself well at those venues.

Somewhat more difficult ovals to master include Darlington, Dover and Bristol, which may prove harder for a newcomer to master.

What does all this mean?

SVG has the tools, the team, the support network, the racing IQ, and the schedule to be a major player at NASCAR’s highest level.