Motorsport: The Giz set for Watkins Glen debut

Shane van Gisbergen is driving a Mercedes for the WeatherTech team in the IMSA Championship at Watkins Glen. Photo / File

Kiwi Supercars reigning champion Shane van Gisbergen is one of the hardest working racers around.

In recent years, the 28-year-old has raced, outside of the Supercars championship, the Blancpain GT Endurance Cup series, The Intercontinental GT Challenge series and the IMSA SportsCar Championship.

He had the odd weekend still spare so turned his hand to the Daytona 24 Hour, Spa Francorchamps 24 Hour and the 12 Hours of Sebring.

Most of his international racing was with the McLaren sportscar campaign where he was a works driver.

Last year was a stellar one for van Gisbergen, winning the Supercars title, the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup and a third place finish in the Intercontinental GT Challenge.

However, due to clashes of race weekends, van Gisbergen has had to part ways with the British team and had to look towards America this season.

Changing continents also included changing manufacturers and now he's in a Mercedes AMG GT3 car for WeatherTech Racing in the IMSA Championship.

Three of the long distance events in the series avoided clashes with Supercars rounds - Daytona, Sebring and Watkins Glen, where the Kiwi is racing this weekend.

"Europe unfortunately wasn't an option this year due to the race weekend clashes," said van Gisbergen from the United States.

"I'd raced with the team [WeatherTech] before in a Porsche at three Daytona 24 Hour races and had some good results. The team moved to racing a Mercedes this year, which has been different but good.

"It's cool to be able to do some different races and see other drivers."

Van Gisbergen proved he was no slouch in the McLaren, putting his team on the podium a number of times.

Again proving just how versatile he is, van Gisbergen jumped into the Mercedes of Scott Taylor Motorsport at the Bathurst 12 Hour in February.

Driving with Maro Engel, the pair were in second place with minutes to go when van Gisbergen unfortunately tagged the wall ending their race.

Things have improved since then, with the Kiwi, co-driving with Cooper MacNeil and Gunnar Jeannette, finishing fifth in class at the 12 Hours of Sebring.

"There is a big difference between the McLaren and the Mercedes.

"The McLaren has more of a race car feeling, while the Mercedes is a road car. They do, however, get similar lap times because of the balance of performance, which evens all the cars out.

"They are different to drive but both are great cars in their own way. It does take a bit of getting use to and I had to change my driving style a bit with the Mercedes and had to learn how the car wanted to go fast.

"Now I'm used to it and it feels really good and is more like a Supercar [rather than the McLaren] but is still quite different," he said.

Van Gisbergen hasn't been to Watkins Glen before. It's a challenging track with a quirky mix of fast and low speed corners.

Getting the car balance right will be hard, with heavy demands on braking and cornering from the high-grip track surface.

The track hosted the US Grand Prix from 1961 to 1980 and has seen action from everything from Nascar to IndyCar.

"I'm looking forward to learning a new place. I've done a lot of laps on the computer and hopefully I can get up to speed pretty quickly. It's an old school sort of track with lots of history; nice and flowing with a mixture of corners.

"I watched the racing from last year and it looked exciting, so I can't wait to get going," van Gisbergen said.