Shane van Gisbergen will not be drawn into a public war of words over his practice incident with Paul Dumbrell at the Armor All Gold Coast 600 last week.
Van Gisbergen was involved in a clash with Dumbrell during the first practice session on the Surfers Paradise street circuit. Dumbrell approached van Gisbergen after the incident but labelled the confrontation as “a waste of time.”
In subsequent interviews, Dumbrell vowed to ‘get even’ with the fast Kiwi.
CLICK HERE for Speedcafe.com’s initial report of the Practice 1 incident.
The SP Tools Racing driver has kept a low profile during the past week and told Speedcafe.com that he is shrugging off the comments.
“Look, I’ve read it all out there and had a look at it, but I’m not going to bite,” van Gisbergen told Speedcafe.com.
“It’s obviously offensive, getting called that, but I’m not worried.
“It’s not my style. I’m just getting on with it.”
Van Gisbergen, currently third in the championship behind the all-conquering TeamVodafone Commodores, says that he is centring all of his energies on the upcoming event at Symmons Plains.
“I’m looking forward to Tassie and having an improved performance compared to how we ran at the Gold Coast,” he said.
“At Tassie, it’s all about qualifying – the top 28 cars are all within 0.6s. Qualifying has been our weakness in the past, so we’re going to be working on that to give us a big head start.
“We’ve struggled at Tassie in the past couple of years too, but hopefully the new direction we are taking with (engineer) Dave Stuart will put us in good place.”
Van Gisbergen’s main motivation for the remaining six races of the season will be to keep third place in the championship.
“We’ve got to keep third in the championship – that’s one of our priorities – but I want to win another couple of races,” he said.
