This weekend, Shane van Gisbergen and the No. 97 Red Bull Chevrolet will race 75 laps around Naval Base Coronado in San Diego in the Anduril 250 NASCAR Cup Series. The new 3.4-mile-long street circuit has 16 turns and sits on an active military base featuring views of downtown San Diego.
“I went to the track last week to do some promotional things, Turns 1 and 2, and the first half of the track was laid out, but around the airfield, there was still choppers there,” commented SVG. “So, I only saw a little bit of the layout, but it was really cool. It’s going to be a really rough and technical course, a lot of unknowns. Thursday will be an important day, when we get on-site and can have a look around the track, get a feel for everything.
“The (track) surface changes stood out to me the most. Some of it’s really nice, there is new tarmac there in Turn 2, and a couple of other places. Then, it’s really rough like Sebring (International Raceway), kind of with the big cracks and old asphalt. It’s going to be a real challenge to have a car that works all kind of surfaces and transitions to them.
“It’s going to be very bumpy, so it’s all about the car then. You’ve got to have good suspension set up, soft and compliant. It kind of reminds me of Homebush (Street Circuit) in some ways. It’s a street track I did around the Olympic Park there in Sydney (Australia).
“The straightaways into little tricky sections and corners, nothing really flows, it’s all one to the other. Then we will put a corner here and here. It’s odd but that makes it a really good challenge. Getting in a rhythm will be really tough but will be important.”
Red Bull and Trackhouse Racing unveiled new paint schemes for Connor Zilisch’s No. 88 and Shane van Gisbergen’s No. 97 Chevrolets ahead of NASCAR San Diego. For the first time in over a decade, two fully branded Red Bull cars will race together in NASCAR. Inspired by the unmistakable blue-and-silver rhombus design of the Red Bull Energy Drink, Zilisch’s No. 88 features a bold blue design, while SVG’s No. 97 is a striking silver scheme — bringing the iconic can design to the track.
Van Gisbergen enters this weekend in San Diego 14th in the Cup Series driver standings, six points above 16th-place, the final spot in The Chase.
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