NASCAR Insiders liken Shane van Gisbergen’s treatment of Austin Hill to Ross Chastain

Shane Van Gisbergen celebrated back-to-back victories in the Zip Buy Now, Pay Later 250 last Saturday, but at Austin Hill's expense. The Richard Childress Racing driver settled for a P5 finish and, needless to say, was not happy about it. However, veteran NASCAR insider Jordan Bianchi saw nothing egregious about what SVG did.

Austin Hill was the leader with just 11 laps to go. As Hill came out of turn 1 and proceeded to turn 2, Shane Van Gisbergen drove to the top and pressed the former hard around the corner. As a result, Hill veered out of the racetrack but still bounced back to a respectable top 5 finish.

Interestingly, that was not the first time the duo were seen dooring each other. Back in March, Hill nudged Shane Van Gisbergen at the Circuit of the Americas. The latter managed to get back on the track and retaliated on the final lap by moving Hill. But all of that went in vain as neither of the two were unable to retain the lead and Kyle Larson grabbed the checkered flag.

Hill did not comment on Gisbergen's move at Sonoma and said that his opinions would probably be wrong. Bianchi, however, felt that Shane Van Gisbergen had done nothing wrong by racing Hill hard. Bianchi explained that an aggressive racer cannot complain when other drivers race him aggressively, In a recent episode of the Teardown on Dirty Mo Media, he said:

"You can't be the aggressor in one race and then complain about someone being aggressive to you," Bianchi said. "He (Shane Van Gisbergen) didn't wipe him out; he just pushed him off the track a little bit and passed him and Hill still finished decently."

According to the veteran journalist, Trackhouse Racing driver Ross Chastain is someone who handles on-track aggression from his fellow competitors well. Speaking of the same, Bianchi said,

"He (Ross Chastain) 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."

With 12 races to go till the postseason, Austin Hill stands second in the NASCAR Xfinity Series point standings with 497 points. He has two wins, 7 top 5s and 9 top 10s to his name.

On the other hand, Shane Van Gisbergen sits 10th with 362 points. Gisbergen had two wins as well, besides three top 5s and four top 10s.

"One-hundred percent"- Shane Van Gisbergen on whether his move on Austin Hill was fair

Shane Van Gisbergen is in his rookie season in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. Nevertheless, he is quickly learning the tricks of the trade. Recalling the closing laps of Saturday's race, the three-time Supercar champion feels there was nothing wrong in the way he had raced Austin Hill.

Here is a video of how things went down between Gisbergen and Hill at Sonoma:

When asked if it was all fair, Gisbergen exclaimed,

"One-hundred percent!"

However, the former Kiwi star did mention that he had no intentions of hitting Hill and that it was all the need of the hour.

“I hate racing and thinking like that, but to me, we’ve both taken a race win off each other now,” Gisbergen told NASCAR, recalling his tussle with Hill back in COTA. “I don’t know. I didn’t go into the corner planning to take him out. Like, I wasn’t going to hit him off the track, but I was gonna try to pass him and I did everything I could."

Only time will tell if the Sonoma incident was the beginning of a new rivalry in the NASCAR arena. The drivers will face off again in the HyVee Perks at IOWA Speedway on June 15. The 250-lap event will stream live on the USA Network with radio updates on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR radio.