The fight for second in the 2014 V8 Supercars Championship went down to the wire, and while most of the focus was on the battle between Craig Lowndes and Mark Winterbottom, another driver snuck through to p2.

Shane van Gisbergen didn’t even want to know the points difference ahead of the final race – but the wet weather expert managed to win the season’s final battle and finish ahead of two seasoned competitors for his best Championship result in seven years in the category.

Now, TEKNO Autosports is looking to push harder this year and prove a one-car team – and its flamboyant young driver – has got the goods to take it to reigning champion Jamie Whincup and Red Bull Racing Australia.

Team boss Jonathon Webb, who drove with van Gisbergen across the Pirtek Enduro Cup, believes the kiwi has matured as a driver, and will be able to deliver the team the Championship trophy.

“There’s no doubt that from the day he hit the track first year out he was always going to be fast,” Webb told Auto Action.

“He was young and a bit out there. He was probably going to win races and maybe not a championship.

“Now he’s definitely come a long way. Between myself and Steve Hallam we’ve spent a lot of time working with him, trying to help him guide and direct him to where he wants to be as a driver and where he wants to be to win a championship.”

While van Gisbergen has been in the V8 Supercars Championship full-time since mid-2007, he’s still one of the younger competitors – at 25 years of age he’s younger than Nick Percat, Ash Walsh, and other up-and-coming ‘young guns’.

TEKNO general manager Steve Hallam officially joined the team at the start of last season, and already knew the young kiwi had something special.

“What was clear to me in 2013 is that he was a very talented driver,” Hallam told Auto Action.

“He was very young and he still is in relative terms.

“He’s not difficult to manage, and no driver is in reality as part of a competitive team. Because there is no point making life difficult for yourself if the car is quick and you’re in with a shot.”

Now, the small team needs to harness van Gisbergen’s talent and push closer to Triple Eight – a team they have a technical relationship with.

“It is a Triple Eight car and we don’t have as many people as Triple Eight but we run it in a similar manner,” Hallam said of the #97 Holden Commodore VF the team races.

“We put our own interpretation on one or two things. We run what I would call a disciplined ship. We try and analyse very clearly the changes we have made and ensure the changes we are going to make are well thought through. I’m not a fan of throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. I think that in this category where it is very competitive it rewards a very disciplined approach.”

Van Gisbergen won five races last season – he and Webb also looked set to win the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 before van Gisbergen stalled the car during a pit stop and was unable to restart it.

The pair bounced back in the closing races in the Championship, climbing to second in the year’s final race – something Webb was so excited about he cheered, uncharacteristically showing emotion in the garage.

With a new livery and sponsor name on the car door for the coming season, now there’s only one spot to conquer.

“We spent a lot of time even before we broke up, before Christmas, working out where we went wrong, how we can improve for 2015,” Webb said in the livery launch video.

“I think if we can tick off even half the boxes and the goals we’ve set for ourselves, we’re a serious hope for the Championship win this year.”