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Van Gisbergen won the race when he moved Hill aside at the final restart, marking the latest chapter of what appears to be a rivalry developing between him and the #21 Chevrolet pilot.
After taking the chequered flag, the Kaulig Racing driver began to drift his #97 Chevrolet around the track in a repeat of scenes from a week ago at Portland, where he had also prevailed.
It was then that Hill, who ultimately finished fifth, drove his Camaro in front of the New Zealander’s and seemingly tried to spoil the burnout.
Speaking on the Stacking Pennies podcast, van Gisbergen admitted he feels a little uneasy about showboating in such a fashion – but that went out the window when Hill drove past, giving him the one-finger salute.
“I used to do that [burnouts/drifting] all the time,” he said.
“You want to be a good winner, so I feel a bit bad in some ways.
“Anyway, so I was doing the skid at Turn 1 because that’s where all the fans are on the hill, at Turn 2, and then he goes past, pulling the finger.
“So I’m like, ‘This is for you now, not the fans.’ I just followed him the whole lap.
“You know, he knows what COTA was. I just followed him…
“Eventually I passed him and I was just waving at him, thumbs up, yeah.”
“[But] I don’t feel anything against him.”
Van Gisbergen might arguably be within his rights to dislike Hill after the Richard Childress Racing driver shoved him wide in an Overtime restart at the Circuit of The Americas in March and ultimately cost him what would have been a first Xfinity Series race win.
After exacting revenge by shunting the #21 Chevrolet later that afternoon, the three-time Bathurst 1000 winner claims his move at Sonoma was a “hundred percent” fair.
Hill evidently did not see it that way, even if he claimed to “plead the Fifth” when queried about the incident in his post-race television interview, and even before van Gisbergen revealed the one-finger salute.
For the New Zealander, it was his second victory burnout in a row, having won a week earlier at Portland.
As he did then, van Gisbergen kicked a rugby ball into the crowd at Sonoma, and explained in the post-race press conference that, in the tradition of the Trackhouse Racing team to which he is contracted, it is set to become a trademark celebration.
“They said, at the start of the year, I’ve got to come up with something for a win,” he recounted.
“Daniel’s [Suarez, Mexican] got the piñata and Ross [Chastain] smashes the watermelon and wastes a good watermelon – he eats it, I guess – but I had to come up with something.
“I grew up with rugby, I love the sport, love the All Blacks, I always support my country, so to have a rugby ball with New Zealand on it, that means a lot to me.
“I don’t know how often I’m going to kick them into the crowd, but hopefully we need to keep getting some rugby balls. It’s pretty cool.”
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