‘I think he will’: Whincup drops SVG contract hint ahead of crunch season

Reigning Supercars champion Shane van Gisbergen is likely to extend his stay in the series thanks to the new Gen3 rules, according to Triple Eight team principal Jamie Whincup.

Three-time champion Van Gisbergen is embarking on his 16th full-time campaign in the main game but is out of contract at the end of the season.

The Kiwi has tied his longevity in the sport to the success of the Gen3 rules in improving the quality of the racing after years of increasing downforce made wheel-to-wheel combat more difficult.

“The [Gen3] car has potential, but I’d like to race people as well,” he said after wrapping up last year’s title. “[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.”

The new regulations have consequently slashed downforce by more than 60 per cent, which should make it easier for cars to follow and pass as well as making them livelier in high-speed corners, particularly combined with their reduced total weight.

While the rules are yet to be proven in real racing circumstances, Whincup said he didn’t foresee any barrier to Van Gisbergen staying on with Triple Eight beyond the end of the season.

“I‘m not expecting any complications whatsoever,” he told Fox Sports. “We’re just giving Shane the respect to get a couple of races under his belt in the new car to make sure he sees his long-term future in Supercars.

“I think he will [re-sign], yes.”

In fact Whincup believes there’s still more to come from the prodigiously talented Kiwi — a perhaps alarming forecast for his rivals considering he won a record-breaking 21 races last season, a strike rate of 65.63 per cent.

“It‘s the two curves,” he said. “It’s the experience curve, which will no doubt keep improving, and then there’s a youthful exuberance that there’s nothing else more important in life than driving a race car.

“Shane has been in that fantastic zone where he‘s got a lot of experience and he’s still got that youthful exuberance of, ‘Yep, nothing else matters apart from getting this car around the track fast’.

“No doubt life gets busier and the older you get the more distractions occur, but I expect him to gain further experience. Absolutely it‘s possible for him to get better if he stays disciplined.”

Van Gisbergen will be paired with Broc Feeney for a second year, with the 20-year-old starting his second year in the main game fresh off victory at the season-ending Adelaide 500, the first win of his career.

Though he finished a distant sixth to Van Gisbergen on last year’s title table, Whincup said it was an impressive return for the rookie, who debuted in the sport with unreasonable levels of public expectation.

“A lot of people had huge expectation that he was going to come and run top three in the championship, but that‘s absolutely unheard of,” he said.

“No rookie in their first year can run in the top five in the championship unless they‘ve got serious experience — like Marcus Ambrose did a great job, but gee he was a well-established driver, an international-calibre driver, before he jumped into Supercars.

“You can‘t compare that to a kid who’s 20 years old who’s just jumped out of Super2.”

But Whincup said Feeney would still have to validate his ability with a considerable step forward in 2023.

“We couldn’t be happier with the way he‘s progressing,” he said. “But like any young kid, the progress or the development curve is quite steep, and it needs to be, so he needs to have another big step up this year to try and stamp his mark and stamp his future in this sport.”

There’s pressure on Whincup’s shoulders too, as the Triple Eight team principal tries to back up a dominant season in 2022 under new rules that have so far meant the competitive pecking order is largely unknown.

“You don‘t try to top it,” he said of last year’s imperious results. “You hit the reset button and just execute race by race, really.

“Any team owner who said there were not a few nerves is lying to you, because we don‘t know — there’s a big unknown there on what’s going to happen this weekend.

“That‘s fantastic, though, for our fan base and the viewers, because that’s what sport’s all about. Going to a sporting event somewhat knowing the result is nowhere near as good as when you’ve got absolutely no idea how it’s going to somehow pan out. So I think it’s a great thing for the sport.

“It‘s exciting times for the category. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a new car. So to have a brand-new car on a crazy little street track like Newcastle for round one and two 250-kilometre races — you couldn’t jump into the deep end any harder.

“It’s a tough situation for the teams, but I‘m looking forward to the challenge.”

The Newcastle 500 starts with first practice today at 11:15am (AEDT) and featured two 250-kilometre races on Saturday and Sunday at 3:20pm.