Shane van Gisbergen has lit up the NASCAR world this season, especially on road courses, securing wins at Sonoma, COTA, and Mexico and punching his ticket to the playoffs, but ovals still remain the Kiwi’s kryptonite, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. isn’t shy about it. He is already sounding the alarm as SVG heads into the postseason, pointing to recent struggles at Dover as a glaring warning sign.
SVG’s road course dominance is undeniable, yet when the series returns to oval racing, cracks begin to show. Dover served as his latest stumbling block. And while the rookie’s season screams trouble, Junior sees this as a pivotal moment; his playoff hopes may be riding on whether he can learn to master the ovals.
Dale Jr. does the math on trying to keep SVG’s playoff hopes alive after Round 1
Coming off his road course, SVG expected momentum at Dover, but his race unraveled early. After claiming a solid sixth-place starting spot via the washout formula, he suffered a right front puncture on lap 11, dropping him four laps down and relegating him to a 37th-place finish. He locked the 31st press speed on track, failing to make up any ground.
He went on to say, “Well, that was over before it started. We got a punctured tire at the start of the race really put us a heap of laps down. Just logged laps till the end. Sucks to have a race like this after the momentum we’ve had the past month! Try again next weekend at Indy.” The puncture left SVG in last place at the end of stage one. He made a very small recovery in stage two, moving up to 34th and ultimately finishing the day in 30th position, placing just behind Cole Custer and ahead of William Byron, who also encountered difficulties.
In Junior’s recent episode of the DJD, he notes this, saying, “I don’t think you can look at passing, defense, or restarts—stuff like that—because he had lost all those laps, and those metrics are highly skewed. But I believe the speed is a pretty fair metric. Thirty-first on speed. I think he’s probably wishing or hoping that might have been a better weekend in terms of overall pace.” Charlotte didn’t go much better for SVG. Starting mid-pack, his rear-end tire damage left him 14th in the Coke 600, matching only his best result of the season, far from the playoff form he needs. Even his veteran teammate Ross Chastain finished with a solid 15th in speed, while SVG lagged well behind.
Dale Jr. went on to say, ” At Charlotte, he (SVG) was maybe a 20th-place car. His teammate struggled there. Ross was okay, but then again, Ross was 16th on speed. The 99 wasn’t much higher than that. Ross is very good at Dover and was not good. Ross usually runs really well there, so to take that car and only be 16th on speed speaks volumes. To your point, TJ, I think the Trackhouse stuff just wasn’t very good this weekend.”
And what is alarming is that Dover and Charlotte weren’t isolated mishaps. SVG has averaged a 31.2-place finish across six ovals this year, with only occasional top 20s at Darlington and Kansas. And now, he enters the playoffs with 17 bonus points, a question that won’t last if these poor oval runs continue. Junior bluntly said, “What I’m worried about with SVG is this: how loud is the noise going to be if he goes in and gets eliminated in the first round with 17 or more playoff points? That would be pretty unprecedented, I believe, to be eliminated in the first round with that kind of advantage in playoff points.”
Even NASCAR insiders couldn’t help but believe that SVG wasn’t giving his 100% on ovals. Trackhouse’s challenge is clear. They must elevate SVG’s oval setup and execution or risk those playoff points being wiped out. But SVG is trying to seek some inspiration from his teammate Ross Chastain.
SVG is dependent on learning from Ross Chastain
Ross Chastain has been earning his reputation as the king of recovery on ovals, most recently with a stunning win at the Coca-Cola 600, starting from 40th and becoming the first driver to win from dead last since 1969. Such performances rely on interest in pace, but also on mental grit and restart mastery, skills that SVG tries to elevate in his own oval game.
SVG praises his teammate’s brilliance in the crucial late race restarts, saying, “Ross has this amazing ability, particularly late in the race, to get an amazing result out of a car that’s P20. He’ll drag it well inside the top ten. So I definitely need to get better at my restarts and car placement like him. Certainly, I feel like I’m getting a lot better.”
With Indy coming on and SVG’s playoff dreams on the line, the driver definitely has immense pressure on him. He enters the Brickyard ready to test those hard-earned oval lessons, though with one eye on his track history and one ear turned to Junior’s cautionary call.
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