Road course dominance boosting Shane van Gisbergen’s chances for NASCAR Playoffs

Shane van Gisbergen’s dominance on road courses is giving him a valuable cushion for NASCAR Playoffs as he continues to sharpen his skills on ovals, according to Trackhouse Racing boss Justin Marks.

Former Supercars star Van Gisbergen registered his fourth win of the season at Watkins Glen last Sunday, driving the No. 88 Chevrolet to Victory Lane with a margin of 11 seconds.

The result propelled him to second in the Playoff standings on 22 points, just two points adrift of Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin, with two more races to go in the Regular Season.

Marks believes the healthy buffer he has built up will help him progress further into the 10-round Playoffs phase of the season, which features just one road course.

“I don’t know if it changes as much as it sort of develops the thought around if we can actually win as many of these road course races as we think we can win, which we’ve done, the hope is that accumulates enough playoff points that as his oval learning development continues to get better, we go into the Playoffs in that first round where we’ve got a lot of points in the bank, he’s in a really good position and he can get through those three fairly difficult oval races in a competitive fashion and get ourselves to the Round of 12, where there’s another road course, another opportunity to punch his ticket to the Round of 8,” he explained.

“Being able to go to the road courses and win like this is a really great sort of support mechanism for his development on the ovals as we chase the points championship.”

For all his success on road courses, van Gisbergen has struggled to make much of an impact on oval tracks in his rookie Cup season.

The 36-year-old’s best result so far on an oval in 2025 has been 14th, achieved at the Coca-Cola 600 on the Memorial Day weekend.

It’s why he languishes in 25th place in the overall standings, despite scoring a joint-highest four wins in the opening two-thirds of the season.

Marks believes van Gisbergen has a lot of potential to improve on ovals, which will serve him well during the Playoffs.

“I’m very encouraged by his rate of learning on the ovals,” said Marks.

I think he has only just begun to start to put it together. I think the ceiling is really high for him, and he’s here for a while.

“There’s not going to be a ton of pressure on him this year. It’s going to be like go into the Playoffs and learn about how things start to change in the Playoffs, how teams race each other, how drivers race each other, how important points are, how you’re always looking at the cut line in the next round, and that’s going to be another great experience for him.

“I think we have a real opportunity to get to the Round of 8, and either way it’ll be a great learning experience for him and get him prepared for making a deeper run year after year.”