Diez: ‘Shane Who’ makes a name for himself at NASCAR street race

Shane Who? When I was handicapping the road course experts last week, I completely missed Shane Van Gisbergen, having never heard of the man. But it’s a name every NASCAR Cup driver, NASCAR official, race team member, and fan will remember from now on. The Australian V8 Supercar star, who the broadcast crew quickly dubbed “SVG,” is the first driver since Johnny Rutherford in 1963 to win a NASCAR Cup race on his first try. And we might not have seen the last of him. He told the NBC broadcast crew that he had one more year commitment to the V8 Supercars, but might take a look at a full-time NASCAR ride after that. I am sure that a few team owners are giving him a serious look for 2024 and beyond. NASCAR’s first street course race was much better than I expected despite rain delays, a track-blocking pileup, and a shortened race. The race started on rain tires and as the track dried, more and more drivers pitted for slicks. Parts of the track were still pretty wet, contributing to several cautions and one track-blocking pileup. As darkness approached, the race was shortened from 100 to 75 laps. Van Gisbergen put on a driving lesson in the closing laps, surging to the front and holding the lead through several restarts. The race got the best ratings of any NASCAR Cup event on NBC since the 2017 Brickyard 400 and was the second-most-watched race this year after the Daytona 500.

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At least the NASCAR drivers in Chicago didn’t have to deal with penalties for exceeding track limits, since street course walls provide their own penalties for leaving the course. But the Austrian Grand Prix was plagued with track limits reports — between 1,200 and 1,500 of them! So many that Race Control and the Stewards could not keep up, resulting in changes in the finishing order five hours after the race. Perhaps installing spike strips in the forbidden areas would solve the problem? In any event, Max Verstappen won his seventh race of the season and fifth in a row, pitting from a 24-second lead for soft tires to set fast lap and get the extra point. That’s just adding insult to injury. 

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While not having quite the dominating season Verstappen and Red Bull are in F1, Alex Palou is dominating the NTT IndyCar series season. His win last Sunday at Mid-Ohio was also a 1-2 for Chip Ganassi Racing, with Scott Dixon following Palou home. Palou leads Dixon in the season points, 377 to 267, with Josef Newgarden at 261, Marcus Ericsson 255, and Pato O’Ward 250 with eight races to go on the 2023 schedule.

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This weekend,, we have the F1 British Grand Prix at Silverstone, NASCAR Cup, Xfinity, and Craftsman Truck series at Atlanta Motor Speedway, and the IMSA Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park in Ontario. Today’s action will feature F1 qualifying on ESPN at 7 a.m.; the Craftsman Trucks O’Reilly Auto Parts 150 at 10:30 a.m. on FS1; Xfinity qualifying at 1:05 p.m. and NASCAR Cup qualifying at 2:35 p.m.; and the Xfinity series Alsco Uniforms 250 at 5 p.m., all on USA. Sunday’s British Grand Prix coverage starts at 7 a.m. on ESPN, the IMSA Chevrolet Grand Prix airs on NBC at 9 a.m., and USA will broadcast the Quaker State 400 for NASCAR Cup cars at 4 p.m. Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz is the defending British GP champion, the Cadillac DPi of Renger van der Zande and Sebastien Bourdais won last year’s Chevrolet Grand Prix, and Chase Elliott won at Atlanta last July with Joey Logano the winner there in March of this year.