While the NASCAR world continues to harp on about SVG’s growing success at road courses, when the question about his qualification for the Chase comes up, Kyle Petty’s answer is a hard no. 

Shane Van Gisbergen is currently 14th in the standings with 24 points more than Austin Cindric in the 16th-place cutoff mark. Yet with 8 more races to come and all of them being ovals of different variations, Kyle Petty is sticking to his answer. 

Petty, in conversation with Steve Letarte and the NASCAR broadcasters for NBC and Prime, respectively, got into the debate about SVG’s qualification scenarios and made a massive statement about SVG’s oval skills. 

On the Inside the Race podcast, Petty said, “I do believe his value will go up if you can get him in the playoffs and he can get in the playoffs year in and year out. But he’s never gonna be an oval racer. I’m sorry.”

Petty’s reasoning was clear. He said that just like SVG is now the gold standard at road courses, Denny Hamlin, with the way he has caught up and passed Tyler Reddick’s lead with three back-to-back oval wins, is the gold standard for ovals, and SVG will remain very far off from it. 

“He’s never going to be able to compete on the majority of the ovals as a winner week in and week out… SVG’s entire catalog, entire history, every movement he makes in a car was learned on a road course. So it’s muscle memory. It just goes straight back. So he’s here, and Denny Hamlin’s here on a road course.”

Petty drew parallels between how Hamlin and SVG have opposite driving prowess, with Hamlin lacking where SVG is good and vice versa. The opinion came despite SVG leading laps and picking up a career -best oval result by finishing 5th in Nashville. 

In fact, SVG's average finish has improved from 24.8 in 2025 to 20.9 in 2026. He is quite often seen running at the front and he has five top-10s and four top-5s already.

Kyle Petty did, however, praise what SVG could bring to bigger teams. 

Petty says SVG could get a top team seat

Although Kyle Petty had strong opinions on why he believes that SVG will never win on road courses, despite showing improvement, having finished two top 10 finishes at ovals this year, Petty did, however, allude to the fact that the 37-year-old Kiwi driver is a leader and a hot commodity. 

On the same podcast, the two broadcasters were discussing the value of having a driver like SVG currently at Trackhouse, where you have Ross Chastain, who is great on ovals but isn’t able to find performance, and you have a rookie having a tough season in Connor Zilisch. 

Petty and Letarte discussed how Zilisch would be learning a lot just being around SVG, seeing what he does on road courses and the kind of efforts he puts in to get better at ovals. Petty spoke on SVG’s value and said:

“If you’ve got a multi-car team, you can’t throw away the road courses. If you’ve got that guy that can be a factor every single road course, he's won eight races out of 16 he’s entered on road courses. 50 percent. That guy deserves a seat at Hendrick, at Gibbs, no matter where you’re at. He deserves that seat because you’re gonna get those wins and tick them off.”

Petty elaborated how that would be an offensive yet defensive move because the team getting in SVG would be willing to sacrifice a car on ovals, yet guarantee that no other team wins at road courses.

Do you, too, think that SVG will never win at an oval course? Let us know.

Read more at the RFK Racing Digest!

Written by

Debrup Chaudhuri

Edited by

Suyashdeep Sason