The three-time Bathurst 1000 winner is on double duty this weekend at Talladega Superspeedway, making for a fourth Cup start of his career after competing at the Chicago Street Circuit and on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course in 2023, and Circuit of The Americas last month.
He qualified 17th-fastest for tomorrow’s 500-miler, one position higher than he managed in the Xfinity Series this weekend, but is unsure how he will fare.
“I don’t know, that car drove way different, but they say in qualifying to race, those cars are pretty different,” van Gisbergen driver told Frontstretch.
“So, we’ll see what it’s like tomorrow; try and learn.
“I’m probably a bit further up than I wanted to be – I’m starting right in the middle – so we’ll see how we go.”
Van Gisbergen was in the thick of the action in today’s Xfinity race at Talladega, leading on merit on Lap 63 and still a chance of victory until his #97 Chevrolet ran out of fuel as he tried to take the first Overtime restart from Row 2.
“I saw it was down on fuel pressure and I was trying to swing it to the left to get the fuel in the box but, once I took off, it just didn’t go,” explained the Kaulig Racing steerer.
“But, it was a pretty awesome day, Wendy’s Camaro was good, and I led a lap – that was pretty exciting – and battling up the front.
“I had fun and I felt a lot more comfortable that I have at Daytona, for example. Yeah, I was making some moves instead of just riding and felt really cool.”
Talladega being a ‘plate’ track (nowadays a tapered spacer), racecraft was even more important than usual, as van Gisbergen experienced.
“The first stage of the race was pretty boring – just riding around, half-throttle – and the second stage was the complete opposite – it was madness almost the whole way – so that was pretty cool,” he recalled.
“Just, certain points and learning who to not, and I made a mistake in Stage 2 thinking someone would follow me.
“They didn’t, and I went straight back. So, still learning every lap, basically.”
Race start is due on Sunday at 15:00 ET/Monday at 05:00 AEST.
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