Chicago (AP) White smoke rose into the air as Shane van Gisbergen celebrated by burning out his tires. In downtown Chicago, he punted a rugby ball into the spectators after signing it.
The scene was not unfamiliar.
On Sunday, Van Gisbergen won the NASCAR Cup Series race on the challenging downtown Chicago street course, completing a Windy City sweep.
We had an amazing weekend. “I’m fortunate,” van Gisbergen remarked.
And a gifted one.
The 36-year-old New Zealander joined Kyle Busch at Indianapolis in 2016 as the second driver to win both the Xfinity and Cup races from the starting position in a single weekend. He also became the most successful foreign-born driver on NASCAR’s top series with his third career Cup victory.
After winning on a road track in Mexico City last month, it was van Gisbergen’s second triumph of the season.
“I’ve never seen a better road course stock car racer,” remarked Justin Marks, owner of Trackhouse. When he is finished with us all and retires from the sport, I believe he will be remembered as the greatest road course racer in the history of the sport.
For the inaugural NASCAR Chicago experiment in 2023, Marks imported van Gisbergen from Australia’s Supercars. He became the first driver to win his Cup debut since Johnny Rutherford in the second qualification race at Daytona in 1963.
He also won the first stage of the Cup race before being knocked out in a crash, and he won Chicago’s Xfinity Series stop last year.
Van Gisbergen declared, “This joint has changed my life.” When I originally arrived, I had no intention of participating in any more NASCAR races, and I never imagined that I would be a full-time NASCAR driver.
Ty Gibbs finished second and Tyler Reddick third in what may have been the final NASCAR race on the downtown Chicago circuit. Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin completed the top five.
“My team came up with a fantastic plan and put me in a position to compete for the win up front,” Gibbs said. We’re happy with our solid finish today, but we wish we could have gone for the victory.
Michael McDowell swiftly took the lead after joining van Gisbergen in the front row. Before being derailed by a throttle cable problem, he led for 31 laps and won Stage 1.
With 16 circuits remaining, Van Gisbergen passed Chase Briscoe to reclaim the lead. Van Gisbergen dominated the remainder of the race as fog and rain swept into downtown Chicago.
Ryan Preece placed seventh, while AJ Allmendinger came in sixth. The winner of the second stage, Ryan Blaney, finished 12th.
Overall, I felt the day was quite good. “Winning that stage was nice,” Blaney remarked.
Byron’s day was interrupted by a clutch issue. The driver for Hendrick Motorsports is 13 points ahead of Chase Elliott in the point standings.
Carson Hocevar struck the wall and spun out between Turns 10 and 11, causing a multicar incident after McDowell took the lead early in the race. Among the drivers gathered in the collision were Will Brown, Daniel Surez, Austin Dillon, and Brad Keselowski.
Keselowski remarked, “I didn’t see it until the last second.” I genuinely thought I was going to get stopped when I slowed down, but instead I was kind of run over from behind. It’s only a small street course, and occasionally there are no places to go.
As Keselowski and Hocevar failed to complete the race, Ty Dillon and Reddick advanced to the third round of NASCAR’s first in-season competition. Last weekend in Atlanta, Keselowski defeated top-seeded Denny Hamlin before being defeated by Dillon, the No. 32 seed.
Erik Jones, John H. Nemechek, Zane Smith, Alex Bowman, Preece, and Gibbs also made progress. A $1 million reward is awarded to the victor of the five-race, bracket-style competition.
Bowman, the 2024 champion on the downtown street course, defeated Bubba Wallace in their head-to-head encounter. Bowman and Wallace, who had also collided in Chicago the previous year, made contact as they fought for position late in the race.
“We got raced like that, which I wasn’t expecting to happen,” Bowman added. We simply need to put it behind us and continue to dig. I’m not sure what I could have done differently.
Top-20 finish
Katherine Legge achieved her best Cup result to date, finishing in 19th place. Since Danica Patrick at Texas in November 2017, she was the first female competitor to place in the top 20 in a Cup race.
Legge was the first woman to earn a spot in the downtown Chicago Cup race.
Up next
On Sunday, July 13, the Cup Series will take place at Sonoma Raceway in California.
