One of the major questions following Sunday’s eero 400 at Chicagoland Speedway was if Shane van Gisbergen would be penalized for an “intentional wreck” with the No. 33, NASCAR announced he won’t be on Tuesday afternoon.
Towards the end of stage 1 of the eero 400, van Gisbergen wrecked Hill in turns 3 and 4 and was instantly under blame that the wreck was intentional moments after. van Gisbergen sent Hill into a massive hit into the outside turn 3 wall, ending his day with severe damage to the No. 33.
Three weeks prior to this incident, Hill was the reason a wreck happened at San Diego that collected van Gisbergen, who arguably had the best car and shot to win the inaugural race at the Naval Base Coronado. This wreck took out both Hill and SVG.
So, of course when the two tangle up a few weeks later, it’s not completely out of the question to determine if there was some payback. Well, Richard Childress certainly thinks it was, “Yep, it was just payback from California. Somebody talk to NASCAR about that. That was blatant.” Childress said over the radio shortly after the wreck.
After a 25th-place finish, van Gisbergen spoke to the media post-race and said that he did not have any intent to wreck Hill and that it was not payback from San Diego. A reporter followed-up and asked if he would speak to Hill, however, doesn’t believe there will be much of a conversation as, “he just grunts.”
On Wednesday afternoon, the penalty report from a chaotic Chicagoland weekend was released, with no major penalties for intentional wrecking. The only penalty on the report went to Jeremy Clement’s team who had a wheel fall-off during the race, this is a two week suspension to two crew members on the No. 51 team.
NASCAR’s Brad Moran, spoke to the SiriumXM NASCAR Radio and said, “there just wasn’t enough evidence to say the wreck was intentional.” During these moments, NASCAR will review all data applicable to ensure the correct decision is made, this time, it held in van Gisbergen’s favor.
The next race slated on the 2026 Cup Series schedule is at EchoPark Speedway, tune into TNT Sports at 7:00 pm EST to catch the action-packed event.