Shane van Gisbergen is aiming to be competing full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2025.
The three-time Supercars champion’s move to the United States and a career in NASCAR next year was made official in September, when Trackhouse Racing announced it had signed him to a “Developmental Program.”
It will see van Gisbergen undertake “select races in NASCAR’s Cup, Xfinity and Craftsman Truck Series plus some late model and other races,” although has been no further word yet on exactly what his 2024 season will look like.
Nevertheless, the man himself has a clear goal for what his 2025 season looks like.
“It sounds like I’m going to be doing a lot of races,” the New Zealander told Speedcafe.
“When they said that it’s be a part-time schedule – maybe 20 races – you know, it’s more than what we do here full-time.
“I want to get as much experience as I can and hopefully be in the Cup Series in ‘25.”
Van Gisbergen would confirm that his comment referred to full-time Cup competition.
He also advised that he is likely to make the move to the USA in mid-December, which would be around two to three weeks after the Supercars season finale at the Vailo Adelaide 500.
The three-time Bathurst 1000 winner has three NASCAR starts under his belt so far; two in the Cup Series and one in the Trucks Series.
He famously won on debut in Chicago, in NASCAR’s first ever street event, then finished 10th when the Cup field raced on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, six weeks later.
On the Friday of the latter weekend, however, van Gisbergen also made his oval debut when the Trucks took to nearby Indianapolis Raceway Park, and drove up from 24th on the grid to 19th at the chequers after briefly nosing into 15th on merit.
That Trucks start came with Niece Motorsports, which has an alliance with the Justin Marks-owned Trackhouse, in a sign of how his 2024 programme could play out.
Trackhouse also has links with Kaulig Racing, which fielded Marks himself as well as both of his Cup full-timers, Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez, in a race each this year.
Those starts came in Kaulig’s ‘All Star’ #10 Chevrolet Camaro, a somewhat similar concept to the ‘Project91’ #91 Chevrolet Camaro which Trackhouse rolled out initially for 2007 World Drivers’ Champion Kimi Raikkonen and then for van Gisbergen.
Back in Supercars, SVG will arrive in Adelaide later this month in his final start for Triple Eight Race Engineering for the foreseeable future as an outside chance of taking what would be a fourth title.
The Adelaide 500 begins on Thursday, November 23 while NASCAR’s 2024 calendar starts with an exhibition race in the LA Memorial Coliseum on Sunday, February 4 (local time) before the Cup field moves on to Daytona for the Duels and the season-opening 500-mile classic.
For more of the latest NASCAR news and analysis, visit Speedcafe US
