Shane Van Gisbergen is clearly the best in the NASCAR Cup Series at turning right and left but Kyle Larson was not going to lay over for the three-time Supercars champion on Sunday at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval.
With around 20 laps to go, ‘SVG’ had approached on fresher tires but a race leading Larson aggressively defended his position. Van Gisbergen made what was arguably a late dive into Turn 7 but Larson did not tolerate it and they traded paint down the oval portion of the track.
Larson effectively forced Van Gisbergen to make a cleaner pass, which he did the very next lap and the 2021 Cup Series champion did not protest the position as strongly as a result.
A heated battle full of contact
“I gave him a bump into 7,” said Van Gisbergen. “I thought he was going to give me some space, and he didn’t, and I couldn’t back out of it. Then straight away it was, like, a switch flipped, and he was angry, and he swiped at me, but probably fair enough. Then was pretty aggressive from there on.
“Yeah, tried to stand my ground. Then he kind of pushed me off a couple of times. Yeah, I thought it was good, hard racing. Once I got back to him, I think he kind of just gave me the spot.”
Larson said he was mostly just trying to make a show out of it even in what he expected to be a losing effort.
“He was just way faster than we were,” Larson said. “I just wanted to make a race out of it because I felt like he was out there just toying with us all day. I tried to keep it respectful but once he got into me first, which he did, it was like gloves off but I wasn’t trying to like crash him or anything.
“He’s just so far beyond all us on these tracks right now.”
For what it’s worth, SVG didn’t feel like he was that much better on Sunday.
“Yeah, especially the start of stage three, I didn’t feel like I was toying with them,” Van Gisbergen said. “I felt like I was struggling, and we didn’t have the pace. They kind of drove away from me.
“But, yeah, every other stint and every other set of tires I felt like we were fine. Not sure if we made a bad adjustment or bad set of tires, whatever it was. But yeah, once the next tires came on, I drove out of the pits and I’m back on again. Away we went.”
SVG says the entire exchange with Larson gave him mixed feelings.
“Yeah, I always enjoy a battle, but you also want to win by half a minute as well, you know, but yeah, I was having fun in that battle,” Van Gisbergen said. “Especially it was frustrating at the start of the last stage when they passed me, but it’s still enjoyable.
“Then trying to understand how to be better and I was trying to study them, see what they were doing better to me, so yeah, battling like that is a lot of fun, but you also want to win easily too.”
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