Shane van Gisbergen (SVG) and Austin Hill rekindled their rivalry at the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Sonoma, and two NASCAR insiders had a lot to say about it. On The Teardown podcast, Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic shared their thoughts on the contact between the two drivers late in the race, leading to a win for SVG.
“Austin does not want to get into it and say ‘Whatever I say is going to be wrong,’ which based on Twitter is probably correct,” Gluck said. “I think Austin Hill has the pulse of how Twitter feels about him at the moment. I personally thought what SVG did there was No. 1 fair game. I thought he was kind of being cut off, but it was fair game based on what happened at COTA.”
Bianchi agreed with Gluck. “You can’t be the aggressor in one race and then complain about someone being aggressive to you in a different race,” he said. “He didn’t wipe him out, he just pushed him off the track a little bit and passed him, and Hill still finished decently.
“That’s why I always said about Ross Chastain, you can say what you want about Ross Chastain. He doesn’t complain about how people race him. He’s going to be aggressive and you can race him aggressive and he’s just like cool. That’s what this is. You cannot be an aggressive driver who’s willing to put a fender to somebody and have a grudge when somebody does it to you.”
What happened between SVG and Austin Hill?
SVG won the race after colliding Hill during the final laps of the race. Hill slid towards the grass and finished fifth after having the lead on the restart with 11 laps remaining.
“I plead the fifth. I’m not gonna say anything about it,” Hill said, per NASCAR.com. “We’ll just go onto the next one. Good, hard racing. Bennett Chevrolet was fast as Xfinity internet. We were holding off SVG there for a while, had that caution and I knew it was gonna be tough on the restart. Then, it didn’t work out, but we had a good points day, finished in the top five. Can’t ask for more than that.”
The first time SVG and Hill had a run-in was in March as the two moved each other during COTA. The two were battling for the lead but lost to Kyle Larson.
SVG won his second consecutive Xfinity series race. He continues to learn the world of stock-car racing after being a three-time Australian Repco Supercars Championship series champion.
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