{"id":65613,"date":"2025-07-14T19:06:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T19:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/65613\/"},"modified":"2025-07-14T19:06:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T19:06:16","slug":"van-gisbergen-denied-nascar-winning-wine-as-he-matches-johnson-feat-motorsport-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/65613\/","title":{"rendered":"Van Gisbergen denied NASCAR winning wine as he matches Johnson feat – Motorsport – Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shane van Gisbergen may have taken the checkered flag in wine country on Sunday<\/a>, but it seems the NASCAR Cup Series<\/a> star was denied a single sip of his celebratory wine. That’s despite a lofty Michael Jordan comparison.<\/a><\/p>\n

It was another masterclass from van Gisbergen at the Toyota\/Save Mart 350, as the 36-year-old won from pole in the No. 88 Chevrolet ZL1 for Trackhouse Racing for his second win in a row, and third in just five races. The New Zealander\u2019s latest dominant showing on a road course saw him become the first Cup Series driver since seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson in 2008 to take victory from pole on three occasions in a single season, per NASCAR Insights<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Van Gisbergen also added his name to NASCAR\u2019s history books by reaching his fourth Cup Series win in only his 34th race – the fastest driver to achieve this landmark since Parnelli Jones did so in 31 races in 1967.<\/p>\n

After drifting around the track in what was a memorable victory lap, coming down the main straightaway whilst high fiving his pit crew before burning out what was left of his tires in a series of donuts, Van Gisbergen continued his celebrations by kicking an Aussie rules football towards the grandstand, as has become his tradition. Handed a bottle of wine as part of the celebrations, he handed this off to his crew chief, Stephen Doran, who was quick to polish it off.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could see my crew chief\u2019s eyes light up when that got handed to him, so I\u2019m glad I handed it to him and he finished it in one go, which was very impressive,\u201d van Gisbergen told reporters. \u201cI don’t know if he’s been in here yet, but he might be talking funny.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once Doran made it to the media room, there were no obvious signs that a whole bottle of wine was making its way through his system as he heaped praise on van Gisbergen\u2019s unique road course abilities. \u201cHe\u2019s something NASCAR\u2019s never seen on road courses, it\u2019s just an honor to be a part of it,\u201d Doran said.<\/p>\n

Truly in a class of his own when it comes to road courses, Hendrick Motorsports\u2019 Chase Elliott even compared van Gisbergen to Michael Jordan following Sonoma<\/a>, after finishing third. \u201cI obviously never played basketball against Michael Jordan<\/a> in his prime, but I feel like that\u2019s what it was probably like,\u201d he admitted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat guy\u2019s just unbelievable on road courses. Just so good. He\u2019s really raised the bar of this entire series. Proud of the effort. I thought there was one restart I was maybe gonna get clear of him, but I mean, truthfully, he was probably gonna pass me back by the end of the lap.\u201d<\/p>\n

DON’T MISS<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for van Gisbergen, the Series will return to ovals for the next few races, starting with Dover on Sunday. But while he may still be finding his feet when it comes to oval racing, Hendrick\u2019s Kyle Larson believes that once van Gisbergen is more accustomed to these uniquely American tracks, he will be a force to be reckoned with in the Championship battle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, he’s so good, and it’s rare that you see somebody stand out and distance himself from the competition as much as he is,\u201d Larson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s way, way, way better than us at the road course stuff. And he’s got his own technique, you can call it. Not his own because the rest of the world does it – right-foot braking, clutching, and all that stuff.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Like, there’s zero chance I can learn how to do that. And even if I did, like there’s zero chance that I can have it be better than what I’m probably doing with left-foot braking. So yeah, he’s just so good.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shane van Gisbergen may have taken the checkered flag in wine country on Sunday, but it seems the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":65614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[41315,46609,4423,1406,46608,9314,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-65613","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-jimmie-johnson","9":"tag-jimmie-johnson-feat","10":"tag-motorsport-section","11":"tag-nascar","12":"tag-road-course-racing","13":"tag-shane-van-gisbergen","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114853156487544140","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}