7 days agoShane van Gisbergen is making his first NASCAR Cup Series start at Homestead. He qualified 25th and finished 17th in his one Xfinity Series start, typically behind A.J. Allmendinger and ahead of Josh Williams. However, that isn't enough experience to make him necessarily valuable at Homestead or really any oval. The fact that he qualified 35th and is very cheap at $6,000 means that he could be valuable in terms of Place Differential points if he backs into a solid finish, but that seems much less likely at Homestead than a lot of other tracks because the races there tend to reward performance and don't devolve into the crapshoots that would be necessary for him to gain enough positions to be valuable in DFS. Once again, chalk this up as a learning experience.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
2 weeks agoEven though Shane van Gisbergen's teammate Ross Chastain was the fastest driver in Saturday's practice at Las Vegas, don't expect SVG to utilize his Trackhouse Racing cars to the same extent. Although it might be tempting to draft him because he is starting 28th and because of Chastain's speed, he is still a rookie who has only raced at this track once before in the Cup Series, finishing 29th in last fall's event. He didn't have much experience there in the Xfinity Series, either, as he had mechanical DNFs in both Las Vegas races last year before they were half over. It takes a while for even the world's best drivers to figure out the Next Gen car, and even though he is one of the world's best drivers, he isn't yet on ovals. It is probably advisable to stay away for DFS lineups.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
3 weeks agoShane van Gisbergen's season effectively lives or dies based on his road course performances to such an extent where his oval performances are something of an afterthought. He makes his first NASCAR Cup Series start at Phoenix today but he performed decently well here in the Xfinity Series, where he finished 6th and 12th in his two starts; he had a better average finish here than his veteran teammate A.J. Allmendinger. SVG starts 29th but his relative inexperience on non-drafting ovals in the Cup Series suggests that he still needs seat time before he has a lot of value on this track type, and it doesn't help that the Trackhouse Racing cars have very hit-or-miss speed on tracks less than 1.5 miles in length. The option tires may help him since he likely has more experience on them in Supercars, but he's probably not worth starting for DFS.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
4 weeks agoShane van Gisbergen led five times for 23 laps at the Circuit of the Americas, first passing pole-sitter Tyler Reddick on Lap 9 and then exchanging the lead several times with Kyle Busch during the second stage. He seemed to be poised for victory after pitting from the lead in Stage 2 to flip the stage, but Busch repassed him right after both had pitted. After consistently running in the top five, he fell to sixth on the Lap 54 restart, as his restarts were unusually slow and it took him too long to recover. He made his last pit stop from the lead on Lap 74 later than most of the other contenders, but while pitting late worked for Christopher Bell, SVG pitted a little too late to capitalize and wound up sixth. He did overtake Riley Herbst for the rookie points lead by three points.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
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