Motor racing's shortest retirement

It will probably go down as the shortest retirement in V8 Supercar history.

Last November, Shane van Gisbergen announced he was walking away from the sport. At just 23 years of age, and with a seemingly lucrative drive at Stone Brothers Racing, the Kiwi made the decision to give it all up, citing "personal reasons" and declining to comment further.

Now, just over two months later, he's back with a brand new deal with Tekno Autosports to drive a Triple Eight-built Holden Commodore in 2013.

Let's get something straight; this whole thing wasn't just a stunt to break van Gisbergen's contract with SBR, which was due to run until 2015.

When he retired, he intended to retire. Between an ongoing rift with SBR management, and the year-long flirtation between the team and millionaire property mogul Betty Klimenko (which eventually morphed in to a complete takeover), van Gisbergen decided he would rather not race at all than stay at SBR.

Van Gisbergen's enthusiasm was waning by late 2012

So he decided to retire. If that freed him up to race for another team, then great. If not, he was ready to take some time off.

"The way things were last year was not good," says van Gisbergen. "Turning up to the race track, I just didn't want to be there. I wasn't in a good frame of mind. I had a contract with SBR that was through to 2015, so I made the decision to stop completely.

"I had planned to take the year off. I spoke to some other teams, but having a contract in place made it hard. So I thought 'OK, I'm just going to stop, try some other forms of racing and just cruise'.

"I had a few plans for things in New Zealand. I tested a rally car, and started looking at options for 2013. It was good fun, and it gave me a chance to see that I could still enjoy my racing."

Why van Gisbergen was so desperate to get out of the SBR environment is complicated. On the face of it, the new era of SBR/Erebus looks fantastic; a new owner with plenty of cash, a new deal with AMG to bring Mercedes into the sport, and a shiny new C63 to drive during the week.

But it's worth noting the Mercedes deal is a customer deal, not a factory deal. Having been so closely aligned with Ford for so long, the thought of being in a customer team unsettled van Gisbergen.

Relations between van Gisbergen and the Stone team had gone into decline

There were also problems with owner Ross Stone, that relationship having soured after five years together.

"Sandown was the start of it," van Gisbergen reveals. "We qualified on pole, and then made a meal of the race and went backwards. A lot of stuff happened that shouldn't have happened that weekend, and it didn't get fixed. It kept happening for the rest of the season.

"It was the same stuff over and over, and I just had enough. At around the same time the Erebus thing started to happen, and it all added up. It was all a bit much for me.

"The relationship between Ross and I... it was just a lot of little things that had added up over time, and it all came out.

"But that wasn't the reason I wanted to leave. I'd made that decision before then anyway."

Now, a new chapter in the career of Shane van Gisbergen is about to start. With the SBR contract finally dissolved, a drive with Tekno beckons. Yes, the Steve Webb-owned team is a customer team as well, but it has strong ties to both Holden and Triple Eight, and the Tekno engineers have been working closely with T8 on the build of the brand new Car of the Future chassis.

Van Gisbergen will join Webb at Tekno

After a strong 2012 with Jono Webb and Michael Patrizi, the signing of a top-line driver like van Gisbergen could be just what the team needs to become a genuine challenger to the likes of T8 and Ford Performance Racing.

"When we first spoke to Tekno, the guys were up at Triple Eight building the shocks," says van Gisbergen. "They're up there nearly every week working through set-up data, whereas I don't think any other customer teams were quite that closely aligned.

"I believe we can win races this year. Triple Eight were testing their new cars months before anybody else, so I'm pretty sure we can come out and win races if we go about it the right way.

"There's always going to be a settling-in period with a new team and a new engineer, but we can be competitive."

Van Gisbergen has ambitions beyond circuit racing

Another advantage of the switch to Tekno is the freedom for van Gisbergen to indulge in some of his other loves, like rallying and drifting.

While everything non-V8s was discouraged by SBR, Tekno has a differently philosophy. With his new-found freedom, van Gisbergen is even planning on tackling selected rounds of the 2013 New Zealand Rally Championship.

"Tekno encourage this stuff," he says. "I mean, if I'm drifting and rallying, it's only going to be good for my car control and my versatility.

"I was never told by SBR not to go out and ride my quad bike or do things like that, but I certainly was never encouraged to do it. I always felt uncomfortable about it."

The season-opening Clipsal 500 may still be a month away, but you can bet it will be a busy four weeks for van Gisbergen as he deals with the inevitable fall-out of this unique situation.

But, typical of the quietly spoken 'Giz Kid', he's just focused on shutting it all out and going racing.

"Hopefully all of the legal stuff is quickly forgotten and I can get on with it. [David] Reynolds went through almost the same thing a year ago with Kelly Racing, and now nobody really remembers that.

"I'm finally going to be in the right environment, and that makes me feel a whole lot better about going V8 Supercar racing again."