DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Three-time Supercars champion Shane van Gisbergen has secured a full-time NASCAR Cup Series spot with Trackhouse Racing for 2025.
Team owner Justin Marks made the announcement on Saturday at Daytona International Speedway with van Gisbergen at his side. The 35-year-old New Zealander will drive the No. 88 Chevrolet for Trackhouse, taking over a number last used in the Cup Series by NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Hendrick Motorsports.
Van Gisbergen will join current Trackhouse drivers Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez when the team expands next season. Trackhouse has purchased a third charter – the contract that guarantees cars participation in every Cup Series race – from Stewart-Haas Racing, which is ending its current four-car operation at the end of this season.
“I never thought it would happen so quickly,” said van Gisbergen.
Marks had previously announced that Trackhouse and Zane Smith will go their separate ways after this season. Trackhouse has loaned Smith to Spire Motorsports for this season as Trackhouse only had two charters.
Van Gisbergen’s rise made the decision “easy,” Marks said. The driver sometimes known simply as “SVG” shocked NASCAR when he won his debut race at the Chicago street race in 2023, becoming the first in the ultra-competitive Cup Series to do so since Johnny Rutherford in the second qualifying race at Daytona in 1963.
“Shane checks a lot of boxes for a really, really compelling story about building a great company in this sport,” Marks said. “He’s incredibly talented, he’s incredibly dedicated. …
“The Chicago street race is definitely his thing. But the ability to adapt to everything else, just the competition, the restarts, the pit stops, the way you prepare for the race, man, that’s a superstar.”
Buoyed by his success in Chicago, van Gisbergen packed up his bags and signed a development program with Trackhouse. Van Gisbergen has three wins and six top-10 finishes in 22 starts in NASCAR’s second-tier Xfinity Series this season and has led 14 laps in four starts in the Cup Series.
Van Gisbergen said his career in the Supercar scene had become rusty and he was looking forward to a new challenge as a stock car driver.
His interest in NASCAR was sparked in 2022 when he saw Formula 1 champion Kimi Raikkonen drive for Trackhouse’s Project 91 program. The goal of the Project 91 program was to give international drivers a chance in NASCAR. Van Gisbergen approached Marks through friends about pursuing a NASCAR career. With van Gisbergen’s history – he has 80 wins in Supercars – he seemed like the perfect driver for the fledgling program.
NASCAR is full of drivers who failed in their attempt to move up to the stock car class after successful careers in other series. Dario Franchitti won the Indianapolis 500 three times, but his Cup Series career ended after two unfortunate seasons. Sam Hornish Jr. and Juan Pablo Montoya never reached the heights in NASCAR that they did in open-wheel racing. Australian driver Marcos Ambrose won two Supercar championships before scoring just two wins in 227 Cup Series races.
Marks believes van Gisbergen will be different and the early results confirm this.
“We were really excited to sign him, knowing this is a relatively unconventional path to a Cup car,” Marks said. “But we wouldn’t do it if we didn’t believe this guy could win many, many Cup races and be a playoff contender. It was a pretty easy decision, honestly.”
