“The skills he (Shane van Gisbergen) has, if he stays in the sport for five, [or] 10 years, in my mind, the way I view it, I would then start to think greatest of all time.” That was Jimmie Johnson back in July 2025. A lot has changed since then, and SVG now sits at a whopping seven road course victories. Sure, the GOAT chatter has surfaced again, but if there is one thing about the #97 driver, it’s that he remains humble.

“Shane van Gisbergen is not only the best road racer now, but he might also just be the best of all time in NASCAR,” said the voice behind FOX’s NASCAR broadcast, Mike Joy.

While Joy has been around the sport long enough to make such a bold statement, SVG refuses to buy into the contention… yet.

“It’s special for people to be saying stuff like that, but I live in the moment. It’s probably something I’ll think about when I stop racing,” Shane van Gisbergen replied to Joy’s comments while talking to the media at The Glen after what was perhaps one of the greatest road-course performances in NASCAR history.

With 40 laps to go in the race, the Kiwi was asked to push while other drivers were told to save fuel. He managed to hold position, but when he pitted under green with 25 laps remaining, the #97 car dropped to 25th place, nearly 30 seconds behind the leader, Ty Gibbs. Then came the moment that defined the race. Within the next 16 laps, he stormed back to snatch the lead, making up ground at an impressive rate, before spending the final eight laps building a 7-second gap over Gibbs in second place.

Of course, the fact that most of the field was saving fuel by that point helped SVG open the gap and gain those positions. But for a driver still in the early years of his Cup career, it was unprecedented.

And if you even glance at the all-time road-course winners’ advanced stats, you’ll see that Shane van Gisbergen has already matched, or is rapidly approaching, the career numbers of Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, and Chase Elliott in a fraction of the starts they had.

Joy may have been right to contend that he is the greatest road-course driver of all time, but there is still one major factor limiting SVG.

“We still have to work on our oval program to get better,” Stephen Doran, the #97’s crew chief, told the media while discussing the chances for a title contention this season.

The 37-year-old spent much of his professional racing career competing in Australia’s Supercars Series. It is understandable why he dominates road courses in NASCAR, but unfortunately for him, most NASCAR and stock-car racing takes place on ovals, something he still needs to master.

Safe to say, SVG has been making gains on ovals, too. His sixth-place finish at Atlanta earlier this year was his best finish at an oval. But the rest of the time, he finds it hard to make a top 10 finish at ovals. Perhaps this is one of the reasons keeping him from embracing Mike Joy’s comment. But his recent remarks prove that he is not here just to showcase his road-course skills. He’s here to win the title.

Shane van Gisbergen comments on his oval racing future

If this were the 2025 season, he would already be comfortably locked in to contend for the Cup Series championship. However, with the elimination-style playoff gone and the Chase format being reinstated, he will have to put in a lot of work, and he understands that fact.

“I really want to earn my way in this year, and that’s what you have to do,” SVG said. “I know that we need to get a lot better as a team, and I still need to improve a lot as a driver.”

Pulling a Chevrolet into Victory Lane has already been difficult this season. Even the best drivers at Hendrick Motorsports haven’t been able to achieve it. Chase Elliott had to wait until Martinsville to secure his and Chevy’s first win of the season. This was primarily because of the changes introduced in the ZL1’s body. But now that Toyota’s dominance over Chevy is slowly disappearing, SVG might actually have a shot at the title. As he revealed, he has been working on his weakness:

“I still enjoy it and still feel like I’m learning a lot, especially the last couple of years,” he added. “It’s probably more than I’ve ever learned, and I don’t feel like I’m getting any slower. I’ll keep doing it as much as I can.”

Consistency is key to clinching the title in this format, so it remains difficult to say whether he will realistically have a shot at the championship. However, with seven road-course wins under his belt, now just two shy of Jeff Gordon atop the all-time road-course wins list, perhaps Mike Joy wasn’t completely wrong in calling him the best road-course driver in NASCAR history.