Brad Keselowski has spent the last month with nerves in his leg reconnecting, recovering in a huge amount of pain as he recovered from a badly broken leg.

He's still had a better January than Shane van Gisbergen.

The New Zealander was a revelation in his rookie Cup Series season last year, winning five races and becoming the winningest non-American born driver in the series' history.

Toward the end of the season, bookmakers were taking the nearly unprecedented step of making him odds-on to win races at road courses. He looked like a playoff lock for years to come, even as he improved his oval performances to the point of possibly being able to make a run past the Round of 16.

Awesome. A fantastic decision to leave Supercars to try and crack America, paying off immediately by putting him in rare air. Only Denny Hamlin won more races than SVG all year, edging him out six to five. Things looked very, very bright coming into 2026.

Van Gisbergen's disastrous 2026 (so far)

Most of that hope has been doused, in the space of just a couple of winter weeks.

The biggest decision made all month was NASCAR's decision to revert to a Chase style postseason and ditch the 'win and in' system, going back to a points-only qualification system.

That was a blow for a driver whose oval racing alone won't be enough to get him the points he needs, who may just have snuck in via 16th place if the Chase system had been in place in 2025 after winning five out of six road course races.

Meaning no disrespect to him, he probably won't bat at an average that high in 2026. The fact that he wasn't let down by his equipment at any point (the only non-win was sixth at COTA early in the season) can't be guaranteed to repeat, and now he'll be joined by a team-mate promoted from the Xfinity Series in Connor Zilisch, the only driver who's truly been able to go head-to-head with the Kiwi when they have to turn the wheel right as well as left.

Van Gisbergen should still start as favorite when the series hits COTA in March, but he and Zilisch were racing wheel-to-wheel in all three Xfinity Series races the Trackhouse star dropped down for in 2025, flipping first and second between them in consecutive weeks at Chicago and Sonoma, before Zilisch took the best of three at Watkins Glen after wrecking his Kiwi team-mate.

That was all bad enough. Then today, it was reported that the second Charlotte race of the year will be run on the 1.5 mile oval rather than the Roval configuration seen for most of the last decade. Combined with no Mexico City race, SVG's chances to grab road wins in 2026 have been slashed from six to four.

The sad thing for Van Gisbergen is that despite their hugely negative impact on him personally, there's very little doubt that both the switch to the Chase and move back to oval racing at Charlotte are absolutely positive moves for the series as a whole.

He admitted as much last week, saying: “I think it kind of needed a change, but it’s hard for me. The reason I’m in the series is because of winning, right? But I feel like I’ve gotten better at ovals to where I don’t have to rely on it.”

He added: “I think it rewards those top guys now that are always winning, and they were the guys calling for it. For me, that’s more of a pure racing championship, so probably a good thing in there.

NASCAR has made good decisions this winter, but one of their most exciting and personable drivers has become very specific collateral damage.

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