Opinion: Kia ora, SVG

And so we bid farewell to one of the most enigmatic racers in Supercars history. The sport will absolutely be poorer for his departure.

Born in Auckland, New Zealand in 1989, Shane van Gisbergen lobbed into V8 Supercars aboard a Kiwi-backed Ford Falcon in 2007, finishing 19th on debut at the now defunct Oran Park Raceway in Sydney.

Tall, gangly and painfully shy, van Gisbergen is the epitome of letting actions speak louder than words. It’s not that he has nothing to say; he just says it with his right foot.

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His racing in an era still dominated by names like Mark Skaife and Craig Lowndes developed steadily, under the tutelage of legendary team owners Ross and Jimmy Stone.

The brothers, themselves quietly spoken and as intolerant of bullshit as their young charge, put their faith in van Gisbergen to help rebuild the team’s fortunes after the heady years of Marcos Ambrose and Russell Ingall – and SVG repaid them with a win at home in New Zealand in 2012.

However, it was at the end of this season that van Gisbergen’s quiet nature clashed head-on with his raw racing ambitions.

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After finding a buyer for their eponymous team in billionaire Betty Klimenko in 2012, the Stones were set to wind out of the sport on a high.

However, van Gisbergen – rightly as it turned out – was concerned that the team’s new owners, combined with a well-intentioned but ultimately misguided switch to Mercedes-AMG V8 Supercars, would be a recipe for disaster.

He would announce his retirement and his plans to move back to New Zealand to reset to a shocked racing community, who rallied behind the youngster as the season wore on.

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Unfortunately, van Gisbergen allowed the narrative to get away from him.

The unconvincing retirement story ultimately blew up in the young man’s face, as he sensationally joined rookie outfit Tekno Autosports for the following season, racing under a legal cloud that would last almost two years.

Van Gisbergen would later profess to wishing he had handled the situation better, realising a moment of self-growth that many in the sport could learn from.

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The rest, as they say, is history, as SVG parlayed the Tekno drive into a berth at Supercars powerhouse Triple Eight Racing in 2016, claiming his first of three titles in his first year.

His palmares of 80 wins, 46 poles and three Bathurst 1000 crowns puts him fourth on the all-time leaderboard; not to mention his success in numerous extra-curricular activities in disciplines as diverse as gravel rallying, speedway, GT3, open wheelers, endurance racing and even Aussie Racing cars and Hyundai Excels.

SVG doesn’t just have a racing brain; he has a supercomputer whirring away quietly inside his Bell helmet, working the angles, crunching the numbers and weighing up the odds in the heat of battle, way ahead of even the best of his on-track foes.

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He takes what he’s got, maximises it absolutely and is relentlessly consistent, lap after lap after lap.

His use of on-board tech to get the absolute best from his car set standards around the world, too.

Take, for example, his use of the brake bias tool. Shane pioneered the practice of changing the proportion of brake pressure front to rear on multiple occasions in a single lap, in order to get the very best tyre performance he can get from the car he has underneath him.

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His uncanny ability to simultaneously get the maximum performance from a tyre while also prolonging its useful life, too, also put him in the box seat for well-planned wins across a variety of circuits.

Some will say his driving style verges on the aggressive side, but in reality, it’s a ‘take no prisoners’ approach that puts the defending driver in a no-win situation. If SVG is in your mirrors, you’re in for a hard afternoon, and he knows it.

For me, though, van Gisbergen’s win on debut this year in NASCAR’s street race debut in Chicago sums up the Kiwi charger best. New track? Sure. New car? No problem. Rain? Sure, why not.

His calm, measured and joyful approach to the weekend, joining forces with a relatively rookie team with a heart the size of Phar Lap, summed up the coming of age of one of the world’s most versatile race car drivers, as he put on a race driver’s clinic ahead of some of the planet’s best-paid race car stars.

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The 2023 season hasn’t been especially kind to the Giz… though I wonder if the lustre of Supercars had worn off long before his busman’s holiday in Illinois.

Unceremoniously – and in my personal view, unfairly – rubbed out of title contention in round one after a technical DQ, the SVG of old only emerged in the back half of the season, as he finally came to grips with a car he’s described in less than glowing terms on a number of occasions.

He’ll enter his final weekend of Supercars competition with a mathematical shot at title number four, but I get the feeling he’d rather see his mate Brodie Kostecki go on with his stellar 2023 season and lift the championship trophy.

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Shane will head to the US in December with his partner Jess, their dog and a 16-year Supercars career in his rear-view mirror, as he tackles the next challenge in his racing career.

Will he return to Supercars? My guess is that it would have to be the right drive at the right time – and that, honestly, may never come again.

Kia ora, SVG. You were bloody spectacular.