NZ Profile – Shane Van Gisbergen
Shane Van Gisbergen is a kiwi who was brought up with motor racing in his blood. At the age of five his father Robert brought his son Shane his first Suzuki ATV, He loved motor racing as he grew up he progressed onto bigger things like in his intermediate years he started karting and was very good at it. Once he got to his teens he started racing at national championships like the New Zealand Formula First Championship, he placed third overall in the 2004/2005 season. That season he was awarded the Rookie of the Year award. He was also lucky enough to obtain a Speed sport Star of Tomorrow Scholarship due to his gifted motorsport abilities. The next year he moved to the New Zealand Formula Ford Championship for the 2005/2006 season and placed first overall, also for that season he also was awarded another Rookie of the Year title. After that he moved on up to the 2006/2007 Toyota Racing series which he placed second overall.
At the age of 17 Shane signed a contract with one of the top Ford team Stone Brothers Racing. Since then his V8 Supercar career has been very successful. Shane has become a well-known and respected driver on the track and in and around Australasia. Van Gisbergen was the 200th driver to start a race at the Jim Beam 400 at Oran Park raceway in round 8 of the 2007 V8 Supercar Championship. That race was a very up and down on the leader board race, he place 20th in race 1, race 2 he moved up to 13th and then dropped down to 23rd in race 3. Van Gisbergen has improved much since then, he was in the lead at the 2009 Bathurst 1000 up until pitting on lap 108 when unfortunately his car would not start, which ended up in a 1:14 pit stop losing him a number of positions in the race. In 2011 Van Gisbergen took out his first race win at the Hamilton ITM 400 in front of his home crowd New Zealand, which was very exciting for him and his family seeing him come so far in his young and growing motorsport
