Supercars 2021: Shane van Gisbergen chasing history at Tasmania SuperSprint
Shane van Gisbergen can make Supercars history at Symmons Plains this weekend but the flying Kiwi, who has dominated the opening to the 2021 championship, is far from satisfied.
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Shane van Gisbergen is on the verge of the most successful start to a Supercars season in history but the man who has defied pain and broken bones has warned Triple Eight is just getting warmed up.
Following his stunning comeback from a mountain biking accident to claim a clean sweep at Sandown last month with a surgically repaired collarbone and broken ribs, van Gisbergen is primed to continue his unbeaten start to the year at Symmons Plains this weekend.
Undefeated in five Supercars races this year, the Triple Eight star could make history as the first driver to win the opening seven races of the V8 championship.
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Allan Moffat and Mark Skaife both won the first six races of the season, in 1977 and 1994 respectively, but van Gisbergen can bump them from the top of the list if he can extend his winning streak in the three-race Tasmania SuperSprint.
Still recovering from the serious injuries which required a metal plate and screws to be inserted into his fractured collarbone last month, the championship leader said the team could be even more dangerous with sharper qualifying.
“Obviously the racing was good, but we are still struggling with qualifying this year and turning the tyre on,” van Gisbergen said. “That’s our biggest focus this weekend …. to try and generate tyre temp somehow and be quicker in qualifying.
“Obviously we’ve got a really good race car and it’s easy on its tyres and generally fast, but we can’t make it work in qualifying.
“That is our deficit to other cars so we are always working hard and never stopping so we’re always trying to get better. (I’m) not complacent at all, I am going to be trying to get as many points as I can every race.”
Despite his qualifying concerns, van Gisbergen still claimed two of the three poles on offer at Sandown, where he extended his series lead to 150 points, over teammate Jamie Whincup.
His unbeaten run of six races stretches back to last year’s Bathurst 1000 and matches similar streaks by Moffat, Dick Johnson, Jim Richards, Skaife, Craig Lowndes, Whincup and Scott McLaughlin.
Only Whincup (seven in 2008) and Lowndes (eight in 1996) have won more than six races straight – but not at the start of the season.
But the records meant little to van Gisbergen as he chases his second championship crown.
“I don’t care about that stuff,” the 31-year-old said. “Maybe (I’ll) look back on it later in life, but at the moment I just want to win races.”
Van Gisbergen was a winner at the last event at Symmons Plains, in 2019, and Triple Eight has dominated at the track to win 11 of the past 14 races.
Since his Sandown clean sweep, van Gisbergen continued his hot racing streak to become just the second driver to complete the Bathurst triple crown with victory in the Bathurst 6 Hour – alongside his previous Bathurst 12 Hour and 1000 wins – over Easter.
The Red Bull ace admitted tackling the 6 Hour stirred up his sore ribs, but he hopes to compete without the aid of painkillers this weekend.
He remains unable to do any fitness work between races as his broken ribs recover, but is starting to get a range of movement back in his shoulder.
“You are not really meant to breathe heavily with the broken ribs, so I’ve just been trying to rest and get better as much as I can,” van Gisbergen said.
“I probably set them back racing at Bathurst in the GT car, but it was well worth it.
“Definitely now it’s the ribs that are the sorest bit and the collarbone – I still know it has been broken – but it’s fine. This weekend is mainly left-handers (turns) so that’s the easy side for my ribs so that is going to be good.”
Van Gisbergen will see his surgeon again after this round and is still weighing up whether to keep the plate in his collarbone in until the end of the season or have it removed earlier.
SUPERCARS ‘ROBBED OF CLASSIC SHOWDOWN’
Supercars has been robbed of its own “Senna versus Schumacher” battle this year without triple champion Scott McLaughlin to fight an “exceptional” Shane van Gisbergen, according to V8 great Mark Skaife.
As McLaughlin straps in for the opening race of his first full-time season racing IndyCar in the US this weekend, his former Triple Eight rival van Gisbergen has stepped up to fill the void as the most dominant driver on the Supercars grid.
Undefeated after the opening two rounds, including a herculean effort to win with a broken collarbone and ribs at Sandown last month, van Gisbergen’s start to the season had been “unbelievable”, according to Skaife.
Skaife said van Gisbergen was “intimidating” his rivals on the track, but the Holden hero has all but put a line through the championship hopes of McLaughlin’s former team Dick Johnson Racing this year.
The team has struggled to make an impact in the first two rounds.
Skaife acknowledged the absence of McLaughlin was significant and could not speculate if Van Gisbergen would have had the same results if he had been in the field. But he said the series had been denied potentially seeing one of the great all-time battles.
“I don’t want to play any of it down because he (van Gisbergen) is going so well, but there is a bloke that used to be in a Mustang who is no longer in the field … it’s a significant out,” Skaife said. “We contemplate what the start of this season would have looked like if McLaughlin was in one of those (DJR) Mustangs.
“We all can’t use our Nostradamus method and try to predict what would happen, but that is a big out.
“And the optics of what has happened with Shell V-Power (DJR) — it’s not just those two new drivers — those cars aren’t good enough. Anton (De Pasquale) and Will (Davison) will get better, but the car is not good enough.
“Remember there used to be this old adage of ‘We were robbed by not seeing enough of (Ayrton) Senna versus (Michael) Schumacher?’ The two timelines just didn’t work out that we didn’t see them against each other, as much as motorsport fans would have loved it.
“It would have been one of the great battles of all time.
“And we have probably just been starved of a similar thing in our local industry.”
Skaife said van Gisbergen was at the peak of his driving powers.
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