He came, he saw, and now he is about to conquer. Shane Van Gisbergen’s migration from The Land of the Long White Cloud to Uncle Sam’s country has largely been successful. Holding three championships and 80 race wins in Supercars along with three Bathurst 1000 wins, SVG was already a force to contend with in motorsports. Yet he took it a notch further in 2023 – when he won his debut NASCAR Cup race in Chicago, a feat replicated after 60 years.

And the Kiwi speedster continues to grow. The 2024 Xfinity Series season witnessed SVG pick up three more road course victories – at Portland, Sonoma, and Chicago. Now with a full Cup Series slate awaiting him, do his chances look better than Xfinity? Fans think so, according to a recent survey.

Shane Van Gisbergen booked for the elite spot

Well, the man already owns motorsports championships. SVG’s Supercars experience helped him a lot on road courses, but he had work to do on oval tracks. Regular ovals comprise roughly half of the tracks in both Cup and Xfinity, with restrictor-plate/drafting tracks making up another 15 to 20 percent. But the good news is Shane Van Gisbergen is slowly overcoming his weakness. His best five-race stretch of the season was on intermediate tracks, scoring a pair of top 10s at Indianapolis and Darlington. He also finished 3rd in Atlanta and 6th in Phoenix. Hence SVG is laying out a glittering prospect for Trackhouse Racing in 2025.

And fans totally believe in that possibility as well. In a recent survey of the top 25 NASCAR Cup Series drivers favored to win the 2025 championship, Shane Van Gisbergen is in there. He is in the middle of the pack, with odds of 65-1, occupying the 16th spot, just two spots below Alex Bowman. He also trumps other Cup Series regulars like Bubba Wallace and Noah Gragson. This projection puts the Kiwi speedster on a high pedestal, and he may perform close to it (if not clinch a championship), as his stats show.

There’s a reason why Shane Van Gisbergen is arguably the most feared competitor on road courses. Just in Xfinity alone, he has an Adjusted Points+ index of 294 on those types of tracks, meaning he was 194 percent better than the average driver on those tracks. Although he has flaws – his mistake in the esses at Watkins Glen opened the door for Chris Buescher to re-pass him for the Cup race win – SVG still poses a gigantic threat. Then his oval and drafting track performance has gotten better. His Adjusted Points+ index at Xfinity Series ovals is 105 — 5 percent better than average — and his index at drafting tracks is 108 — 8 percent above average. Additionally, 2025 heralds a big advantage for SVG – he admittedly feels more comfortable in Cup cars, labeling the Xfinity car a “forklift” recently.

Yet even the Supercars champ has a bad flaw. That may throw a wrench in his plans to shock NASCAR fans again.

The only chip on SVG’s shoulder

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Well, even legends have weaknesses of their own. For Shane Van Gisbergen, it is indubitably racing on short tracks. SVG has an Adjusted Points+ index of just 77 (23 percent worse than average) at short tracks in his first year as a full-time Xfinity driver. Although it is a small sample of 4 races, his other performances are not good. He has zero top 10s and a 34th-place finish at Iowa, one of his worst runs of the season. This makes short tracks the worst track type for SVG, and understandably so, too. Short-track racing is a specialized skill that many NASCAR drivers learn at local short tracks across America. SVG did not have that upbringing, in which he raced karts and motorbikes instead.

And the Cup Series schedule has a lot of short tracks, including iconic ones like Bristol Motor Speedway or Richmond Raceway. Despite this obvious disadvantage to his Cup career plans, SVG is still excited about 2025. “I know there is a tough learning curve ahead, but the best way to learn is to go out and do it… Feel I have made progress running the Xfinity Series this year with Kaulig Racing and I can’t thank everyone there enough. I look forward to the Cup Series. Those drivers and teams are the best in the world and it will be an honor to be part of their races.” Trackhouse founder Justin Marks also hyped him up: “Everyone will get to watch one of the world’s racing superstars compete in the NASCAR Cup Series next year.”

Evidently, Shane Van Gisbergen is gearing up for his best shot. Indeed, his Xfinity stats reveal that his Cup Series statistics are bound to be a shocker.