Shane van Gisbergen has admitted his post-race victory celebrations at Sonoma were directed at Austin Hill after the American flipped him off after the chequered flag.
Hill had led a late restart to green but was overtaken by the Kiwi at Turn 2 as he cut down to cover the #97’s aggressive move. The side-on contact dropped Hill down to sixth, while van Gisbergen went on to win his second consecutive race.
It was the second time the two have come together while battling for wins on road courses, with the American bumping the Kiwi from the lead at Circuit of the Americas earlier in the year.
“We’ve both taken a race win off each other now,” van Gisbergen said after the race.
Speaking on the ‘Stacking Pennies’ podcast, the Kiwi discussed his celebrations and revealed they changed when Hill passed him and gave him a one-finger salute.
“I used to do that [burnouts and drifting] all the time,” he said. “You want to be a good winner, so I feel a bit bad in some ways.
“Anyway, so I was doing the skid at Turn 1 because that’s where all the fans are on the hill, at Turn 2, and then he goes past, pulling the finger.
“So I’m like, ‘This is for you now, not the fans.’ I just followed him the whole lap. You know, he knows what COTA was. I just followed him.
“Eventually, I passed him, and I was just waving at him, thumbs up.”
“I don’t feel anything against him.”
The three-time Supercars champion also discussed his trademark post-race celebration of kicking a signed New Zealand rugby ball into the crowd.
“They said, at the start of the year, I’ve got to come up with something for a win,” he added.
“Daniel’s [Suarez] got the piñata, and Ross [Chastain] smashes the watermelon and wastes a good watermelon – he eats it, I guess – but I had to come up with something.
“I grew up with rugby. I love the sport, love the All Blacks, and I always support my country, so to have a rugby ball with New Zealand on it means a lot to me.
“I don’t know how often I’m going to kick them into the crowd, but hopefully, we need to keep getting some rugby balls. It’s pretty cool.”
A run of oval races awaits in the Xfinity Series, with this weekend’s outing in Iowa followed by rounds at New Hampshire and Nashville before the Chicago Street Race on July 7.
Header Image: Shane van Gisbergen (Facebook)
