Shane van Gisbergen may as well go straight into the Cup Series if he is to race in NASCAR next year, according to Kyle Larson.
The three-time Supercars champion has confirmed that it is his intent to leave Supercars for NASCAR in 2024, although he would not necessarily be racing full-time immediately.
This Friday (local time), van Gisbergen will make his oval debut in the Trucks Series at Indianapolis Raceway Park, before a second Cup start on the road course of nearby Indianapolis Motor Speedway on the weekend.
In Larson’s mind, though, he should be fast-tracked to the Cup Series next year.
“What’s the point?” mused the 2021 Cup Series champion.
“Just throw him in the Cup Series. He’s good enough to figure it out, so what’s the point in the Xfinity Series if the financials make sense?
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“Throw him to the wolves and he’s going to figure it out.”
In fact, Larson expects van Gisbergen to pick up on the discipline of oval racing pretty fast.
“He should be fine,” said the Hendrick Motorsports pilot.
“He is a driver, even with mostly a road racing background, this shouldn’t take him too long to figure out.
“It might be simpler to him, compared to what he is used to, so he’s going to be pretty good.”
After van Gisbergen shocked the NASCAR world by winning on the streets of Chicago, Larson suggested that the New Zealander could return home and tell his peers that stock car drivers, in his words, suck.
From that standpoint, Larson is looking forward to a rematch on The Brickyard road course, a more level playing field since Cup drivers have competed on this layout since the 2021 season.
It’s not just about van Gisbergen in the Trackhouse Racing/Project91 entry either, as the Verizon 200 at the Brickyard will also feature the Cup Series debut of Brodie Kostecki in a Richard Childress Racing entry and sportscar champion Kamui Kobayashi driving for 23XI Racing.
“I think it’s great and I’m looking forward to the opportunity,” Larson said.
“It’s exciting to get to race with guys of different backgrounds and all that, not only to see where I stack up, but where they are better and the things they do behind the wheel.”
NASCAR makes driver throttle and braking traces available to every team, allowing a driver like Larson to see exactly where van Gisbergen could be making time at a track like Chicago or Indianapolis.
“It goes both ways too, to where if they’re off the pace, they can look at our stuff and learn from it,” Larson said.
“It will be fun because they’re all in great cars and should be really fast.”
Larson previously praised van Gisbergen for his footwork, saying that he isn’t sure he could race in Supercars if that is how they need to be driven, and this is coming from a racer who quite literally competes in everything these days.
He made the observation after practice at Chicago.
“He’s like, ‘Yeah, my car doesn’t feel very fast in the straightaway,’ and I’m like ‘Well, I don’t know if you know this, but you hit the brake pedal every time you upshift.’
“Like he takes his foot off the clutch shifts and taps the brake. I don’t … I just don’t like it,” the Hendrick Motorsports driver said that weekend.
“I don’t know if it’s just like your brain tick thing or something, but I’m sure it doesn’t really affect it. But it’s just it was wild watching his feet work. And there’s no way, there’s absolutely no way if that’s how you have to drive a Supercar, like if I was ever run one, there’s no way I could do it. So okay, mark supercars probably off the list of cars you may see me race because I don’t have that tool in my toolbox.”
But don’t sleep on Kobayashi next weekend, either. Denny Hamlin, who co-owns 23XI Racing with NBA legend Michael Jordan, says Kobayashi has been extremely impressive in the Toyota Racing Development simulator and in his one allotted test at Virginia International Raceway.
“I think he’s going to be fast,” Hamlin said. “I really do. I can’t wait to see where we stack up in the sim this week, but from what I understand from the test at VIR and the sim, he’s been really fast.”
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