Shane van Gisbergen reacts to rough Darlington playoff opener: 'Losing my s*** inside the car'

Shane van Gisbergen made his money on road courses during the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season. He won four races in total, but the question on everyone’s mind was always whether or not he could perform on ovals come playoff time.

There’s only one road course during the playoffs, and it doesn’t come until the Round of 12. SVG will have to survive Darlington, World Wide Technology and Bristol to get there, and it wasn’t a great start for the New Zealander in South Carolina.

“The caution coming out at the wrong time bit us, but we just had nothing anyway. Whatever was different from yesterday — the car was horrible,” SVG stated, via Matt Weaver of Motorsport after his P32 finish. “They tried everything they could, but we couldn’t make it better. I couldn’t find a way to make speed. … I was losing my shit inside the car.

“It’s a shame, because I had reasonable hopes. We went good here in the spring, and our cars are getting better. I felt helpless out there. … I don’t know next week’s track, and then Bristol’s very tough. So yeah, just have to try and do our best job, and hopefully we get good results in the coming weeks.”

At the moment, SVG is three points to the good, but a bad run in either of the next two races could change everything. He’s frustrated at the moment, but it’ll be up to him and his No. 88 Chevrolet team to figure it out in short order.

Alex Bowman reacts to ‘unacceptable’ result in Southern 500

SVG was far from the only playoff driver disappointed in his result at Darlington. Alex Bowman finished P31 in the Southern 500. Already in a fragile place entering the postseason, Bowman is now tied for fewest points in the 16-driver field. 

He got involved in Josh Berry’s Lap 1 accident. At least partially. Still, that wasn’t the only reason why this team couldn’t put together a strong outing tonight.

Ultimately, Bowman finished P31 and two laps down. For a Hendrick driver that’s unacceptable. The only problem is, his teammates finished P17, P19, and P21. So, it isn’t like he was that much worse. After the finish, Bowman spoke to the media. He was not happy with the result, obviously. 

“Yeah I mean, it certainly wasn’t a lack of effort,” Bowman explained, via Kelly Crandall of RACER. “But, just a sh***y, unacceptable day on all fronts, you know. We weren’t great when we unloaded, didn’t qualify well. Got caught up in that first deal a little bit, lost a little bit of track position that we had, and then just kind of fell apart from there. 

“Honestly, without all that, we’re just really, really slow. Yeah, not for a lack of effort from any of these guys, they all work super hard back at the shop, and you know, everybody’s putting in a lot of work. But unfortunately, we just missed it this week. Obviously, I’ll have to look at it, but I can see my teammates. So, I assume we all missed it a little bit, and yeah, just a s**t day, but could have been a lot worse, I’m sure.”

— On3’s Jonathan Howard contributed to this article.