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V8 Supercars
PRUETT: Plenty Of Intrigue, Questions With Van Gisbergen’s V8 Exit
Why did the V8 Supercars' hottest young gun take an odd career turn, announcing he'll step away from the series after next weekend's season finale?
SvG took sixth in the 2010 V8 championship, third in 2011 and sits fifth with one race to go in 2012. (Photo: Marshall Pruett)
New Zealand's Shane van Gisbergen, one of the V8 Supercars' most impressive young stars, made an odd but expected announcement when it was confirmed he'll step aside from the sport after next weekend's V8 season finale.
In an official release posted Thursday in Australia, van Gisbergen offered a rather cryptic explanation regarding his decision and also thanked his Stone Brothers Racing team.
“I am leaving V8 Supercars due to personal reasons which I do not wish to discuss in the public domain. I will be moving back home to New Zealand and have no fixed plans for the future," he said.
“I have enjoyed a five successful years with Stone Brothers Racing and was given as unique opportunity by the team to race V8s at a very young age, which I am very grateful for."
Rumors have swirled around the lead driver for the championship-winning SBR outfit during the past few weeks, with the 23-year-old's displeasure at SBR's move from fielding Fords to building (unproven) customer AMG Mercedes cited as the cause of the fracture between himself and the team.
Now, with the fracture about to become a clean break, SBR is on the lookout for a new driver and van Gisbergen has chosen to park himself--just as the series moves to the new Car of the Future platform that has AMG Mercedes and Nissan joining Ford and Holden in 2013.
But with his career on the rise, how did he arrive at this ballsy conclusion?
Van Gisbergen broke into V8s as a full-time driver with SBR in 2008 at the age of 18, and by 2010, worked his way to sixth in the final standings. He’d make his biggest mark in 2011, winning a pair of races on the way to third in the championship, and currently sits fifth in points—the first driver behind Triple 8 Engineering outfit, Australia’s version of Team Penske, and the resurgent Ford Performance Racing factory squad.
The talented Kiwi signed a 3-year extension with SBR on May 18th this year, while on September 19th, SBR announced it had joined forces with Erebus Motorsports to build and campaign C-Class Mercs in place of the Fords it had mastered for more than a decade.
Despite SBR’s partnership with Erebus and its billionaire owner Betty Klimenko, and the financial resources that will be unleashed on the Mercedes V8 CotF platform, it’s likely van Gisbergen saw the long road ahead to bring the C-Class cars into a state of competitiveness and soured at the thought of losing his place in the top 5.
That the SBR/Erebus/AMG Mercedes link-up came so close to the 2013 V8 season opener in February was also suggested as a point of concern. Building, homologating and testing the fleet of new cars in such a short timespan would be tough for even the biggest teams, yet with an infusion of cash from Erebus, it’s not impossible.
With “The Giz” hitting his stride as a professional, the thought of kissing the 2013 season and his career momentum goodbye as his team starts over appears to have been the catalyst in his request for a release from the team.
In an official release posted Thursday in Australia, van Gisbergen offered a rather cryptic explanation regarding his decision and also thanked his Stone Brothers Racing team.
“I am leaving V8 Supercars due to personal reasons which I do not wish to discuss in the public domain. I will be moving back home to New Zealand and have no fixed plans for the future," he said.
“I have enjoyed a five successful years with Stone Brothers Racing and was given as unique opportunity by the team to race V8s at a very young age, which I am very grateful for."
Rumors have swirled around the lead driver for the championship-winning SBR outfit during the past few weeks, with the 23-year-old's displeasure at SBR's move from fielding Fords to building (unproven) customer AMG Mercedes cited as the cause of the fracture between himself and the team.
Now, with the fracture about to become a clean break, SBR is on the lookout for a new driver and van Gisbergen has chosen to park himself--just as the series moves to the new Car of the Future platform that has AMG Mercedes and Nissan joining Ford and Holden in 2013.
But with his career on the rise, how did he arrive at this ballsy conclusion?
Van Gisbergen broke into V8s as a full-time driver with SBR in 2008 at the age of 18, and by 2010, worked his way to sixth in the final standings. He’d make his biggest mark in 2011, winning a pair of races on the way to third in the championship, and currently sits fifth in points—the first driver behind Triple 8 Engineering outfit, Australia’s version of Team Penske, and the resurgent Ford Performance Racing factory squad.
The talented Kiwi signed a 3-year extension with SBR on May 18th this year, while on September 19th, SBR announced it had joined forces with Erebus Motorsports to build and campaign C-Class Mercs in place of the Fords it had mastered for more than a decade.
Despite SBR’s partnership with Erebus and its billionaire owner Betty Klimenko, and the financial resources that will be unleashed on the Mercedes V8 CotF platform, it’s likely van Gisbergen saw the long road ahead to bring the C-Class cars into a state of competitiveness and soured at the thought of losing his place in the top 5.
That the SBR/Erebus/AMG Mercedes link-up came so close to the 2013 V8 season opener in February was also suggested as a point of concern. Building, homologating and testing the fleet of new cars in such a short timespan would be tough for even the biggest teams, yet with an infusion of cash from Erebus, it’s not impossible.
With “The Giz” hitting his stride as a professional, the thought of kissing the 2013 season and his career momentum goodbye as his team starts over appears to have been the catalyst in his request for a release from the team.
Supercars Darwin Australia
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