Van Gisbergen wins in Chicago once
again, completing a NASCAR weekend sweep
[July 07, 2025]
By JAY COHEN
CHICAGO (AP) — Shane van Gisbergen burned out his tires in
celebration, sending white smoke into the air. He signed a rugby
ball and punted it into the stands in downtown Chicago.
It was a familiar scene.
Van Gisbergen completed a Windy City sweep Sunday, winning the
NASCAR Cup Series race on the tricky street course in downtown
Chicago.
“Epic weekend for us. I’m a lucky guy,” van Gisbergen said.
A talented one, too.
The 36-year-old New Zealand native became the second driver to sweep
the Xfinity and Cup races in a single weekend from the pole, joining
Kyle Busch at Indianapolis in 2016. With his third career Cup win,
he also became the winningest foreign-born driver on NASCAR's top
series.
It was van Gisbergen's second victory of the season after the
Trackhouse Racing driver also won last month on a Mexico City road
course.
“He’s the best road course stock car racer that I’ve ever seen,”
Trackhouse owner Justin Marks said. “I think when he’s done with us
all and walks away from the sport, I think he’s going to walk away
as the best road course racer that this sport has ever seen.”
Marks brought van Gisbergen over from Australia’s Supercars for the
first edition of NASCAR’s Chicago experiment in 2023, and he became
the first driver to win his Cup debut since Johnny Rutherford in the
second qualifying race at Daytona in 1963.
He also won Chicago’s Xfinity Series stop last year and the first
stage in the Cup race before he was knocked out by a crash.
“This joint, it’s changed my life,” van Gisbergen said. “I didn’t
have any plans to do more NASCAR races when I first came over here,
and I never thought I’d be in NASCAR full time.”
In what might be the last NASCAR race on the downtown Chicago
circuit, Ty Gibbs was second and Tyler Reddick finished third. Denny
Hamlin and Kyle Busch rounded out the top five.
“My team called a great strategy and got me in position to get me up
front to compete for the win,” Gibbs said. “It worked out for us
today, so I’m glad to have a good finish, but we wish we could have
gone for the win.”
Michael McDowell joined van Gisbergen on the front row and quickly
moved in front. He won Stage 1 and led for 31 laps before he was
derailed by a throttle cable issue.
Van Gisbergen regained the lead when he passed Chase Briscoe with 16
laps left. As fog and rain moved into downtown Chicago, van
Gisbergen controlled the action the rest of the way.
AJ Allmendinger was sixth, and Ryan Preece finished seventh. Ryan
Blaney, who won the second stage, was 12th.
“I thought overall it was a pretty decent day. It was nice to win
that stage," Blaney said.
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Shane van Gisbergen, center, holds the trophy after winning a NASCAR
Cup Series auto race at the Grant Park 165, Sunday, July 6, 2025, in
Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)
William Byron's day was cut short by a clutch
problem. The Hendrick Motorsports driver leads the point standings
by 13 points over Chase Elliott.
After McDowell seized the lead early in the race, Carson Hocevar
caused a multicar crash when he hit the wall and spun out between
Turns 10 and 11. Brad Keselowski, Austin Dillon, Daniel Suárez and
Will Brown were among the drivers collected in the wreck.
“I didn’t see it until the last second," Keselowski said. "I slowed
down and I actually felt I was going to get stopped and then I just
kind of got ran over from behind. It’s just a narrow street course
and sometimes there’s nowhere to go.”
Ty Dillon and Reddick moved into the third round of NASCAR's
inaugural in-season tournament when Keselowski and Hocevar were
unable to finish the race. Dillon, the No. 32 seed, eliminated
Keselowski after he upset top-seeded Denny Hamlin last weekend at
Atlanta.
Gibbs, Preece, Alex Bowman, John H. Nemechek, Zane Smith and Erik
Jones also advanced. The winner of the five-race, bracket-style
tournament takes home a $1 million prize.
Bowman, the 2024 champion on the downtown street course, won his
head-to-head matchup with Bubba Wallace. Bowman and Wallace made
contact as they battled for position late in the race after they
also tangled in Chicago last year.
“I wasn’t expecting that to happen or to get raced like that, but we
did,” Bowman said. “We just have to move on from it and keep
digging. I don’t really know what I could have done much different.”
Top-20 finish
Katherine Legge finished 19th for her best career Cup result. She
became the first woman to finish in the top 20 in a Cup race since
Danica Patrick at Texas in November 2017.
Legge was the first woman to qualify for the Cup race in downtown
Chicago.
Up next
The Cup Series is at Sonoma Raceway in California on Sunday, July
13.
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