Reigning champion Shane van Gisbergen says he’ll wait to see what the Gen3 era of Supercars looks like before deciding on how long he’ll continue racing in the category.
The freshly minted 2022 champion has dominated the season on the way to his third title, winning an unprecedented 21 races so far.
It’s an especially impressive record given the 15-season veteran has been increasingly experimental off track. This year he made debut entries in the 24 Hours of Le Mans (fifth in class), the Australian Rally Championship (second place) and the World Rally Championship (third in class, ninth overall) as well finishing third at the Bathurst 12 Hour.
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The 33-year-old’s success in other categories has prompted questions about his future in the Supercars, particularly in light of fellow three-time title-winning Kiwi Scott McLaughlin’s successful full-time switch to IndyCar in 2021, where he finished fourth in this year’s standings.
Van Gisbergen said he’d started considering his next contract but was unlikely to commit before sampling the new-generation of cars set to debut next season.
“It depends on Gen3 probably,” he said. “I would like to say here.
“If I stay in Supercars, I’ll definitely stay with Triple Eight. I love the team, and we have started talking about a new deal.
“But maybe I’d like to start next year and see what the racing is like.”
Van Gisbergen, who signed a “multiyear” deal last year that is believed to expire at the end of next year, said he was becoming dissatisfied with the quality of racing in the category thanks to the proliferation of aerodynamic devices.
Reducing the aero loads generated by the cars has been a key aim of the new rules, and the series predicted the new models will produce in the order of 60 per cent less aero load than the current specification of car.
“Hopefully next year it’s a better race car,” Van Gisbergen said.
“The [Gen3] car has potential, but I’d like to race people as well. [This season] when you follow someone you can hardly follow with the aero stuff.
“I just want it to be fun and a good car to drive.
“I just hope it is a good race car, a fun race car, for everyone and we still have some room to develop it and change it around.
“Everything they say about it is good. They are talking it up, all the engineers, and I trust them. But we’ll see at the first race what it is really like.”
One of the engineers talking up the new rules is Triple Eight team manager Mark Dutton, who said he was optimistic that the Gen3 cars would produce a better spectacle.
“A lot of people in the category are keen for it to work and be successful so we keep the passion and have big reward for the hard work — it’s been a lot of hard work, Gen3,” he told the Cool Down Lap podcast.
“But everything says it should be good — the cars look better, they’re lighter, they’ve got less downforce.
“Everything points to better racing, and if there’s better racing, you know Shane’s going to be there carving it up.”
Losing Van Gisbergen to the series would be a major blow given his status as a champion and as the bar against which the rest of the sport has been measured in the last two years.
While Triple Eight has played a major role in propelling him to championship glory with its class-leading machinery, SVG has established himself as the category’s alpha, as is clear by the way he’s able to bully other drivers on track into ceding position.
Chaz Mostert, whose four wins, the most of any other driver this year, has him on track to finish the season third in the standings, said he hoped Van Gisbergen would stay in the category to continue setting the standard.
“I’d personally love him to stay,” Mostert said, per Speedcafe. “It’s the same with Scotty (McLaughlin) before he went overseas.
“I want to race the best guys not only in Australia but in the world, and I look at Shane and Scotty — they are some of the best race car drivers I’ve ever versed.”
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Mostert echoed Van Gisbergen’s hopes for the new cars, though he added that the frontrunning drivers also needed to lift to try to take on the champion.
“It probably breaks a lot of us drivers’ hearts this year that we haven’t been able to pressure Shane and been able to race him the way he wants to be raced and keep him honest in the championship,” he said.
“I don’t know if that’s just a car thing and where the cars have got to, but I’m sure that Gen3 is another opportunity.
“You can’t take away anything from Shane — he’s probably one of the best drivers in the world and he does a fantastic job — but we need to step up as drivers and hopefully as a category.”
