Shane Van Gisbergen delivers on role; Wins into playoffs in Mexico

“That’s essentially why I’m here, right?”

Shane Van Gisbergen is a full-time Cup Series driver right now because Trackhouse Racing team owner Justin Marks knew that an expert road racing skill set could be an absolutely transformative attribute.

Circuit of the Americas
Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez
Sonoma Raceway
Grant Park Street Circuit
Watkins Glen International

That’s five opportunities to serve two purposes simultaneously. For one, a regular season victory would lock the Trackhouse No. 88 charter into the top 16 of the final owner’s championship standings, increasing its value for next season and beyond.

But really, winning a road course race locks ‘SVG’ into the playoffs too, while also taking off some of the pressure for the three-time Supercars champion to continue learning oval racing at 36-years-old.

Marks made the decision to immediately promote Van Gisbergen to Cup after just one season at the Xfinity Series level because a) he wasn’t going to get anything more out of racing those outdated cars and b) winning road course races at the highest level would be a missed business opportunity.

So, yeah, this is why Shane Van Gisbergen is here.

“I am getting better and more competitive on ovals,” Van Gisbergen said. “I said this earlier — my average oval running position has gone from 25th to 10th to 20th or 10th to 15th on a good day.

“Like we’re really making a lot of progress and sort of not been forcing. I’ve been methodical, gotten better every week and it’s been really fun working with my 88 crew all year. But the last couple of months, yeah, it’s been great to show some improvement and be competitive.”

There are some buts that come with this too in that ‘SVG’ won a race from 32nd in the championship and will finish no worse than 16th in the final standings despite sitting just 30th even after his victory.

It’s going to deny a winless top-15 team in the regular season standings a chance to race for a championship as a result, just as it did last year when Harrison Burton won Daytona from 33rd in the standings.

But this time, it wasn’t a win based on who didn’t crash out of a superspeedway but a technical clinic in which Van Gisbergen crossed the finish line 16.567 seconds ahead of Christopher Bell.

This was a legitimate Cup Series win by every metric.

“I don’t do as good when someone tells me to slow down,” Van Gisbergen said. “Stephen (Doran, crew chief) kept telling me to slow down and telling me what the other guys were doing.”

At one point, ‘SVG’ even dismissively said ‘that’s good to know,’ and just got back on the throttle.

“I tried to back it off six-to-eight tenths and I just kept making mistakes. You just lose focus and you start thinking about what’s going to happen. I just wanted to knuckle down and concentrate on the task at hand.”

Bell and Chase Elliott, who shared the podium with ‘SVG’ said they didn’t get beat by a set-up or car, but the other driver on Sunday.

“I would love to say a different setup but I think it was more driver,” Bell said.” … I think I just need to work on myself a little bit, figure out what Shane was doing through a couple sections of the racetrack, and my guys have been bringing really good road course cars for a long time now.

“If we come back, I’d probably bring something pretty close and try and drive a little bit better and see if I can close the gap on him.”

Elliott echoed that sentiment.

“I think Shane was likely the difference maker, especially once you gave him fresh air,” Elliott said. “I think he just managed that last run so well. … I could ask for little things here or there, but at the end of the day, I would say likely just button up some things behind the wheel and try to keep (my)self in a better position throughout the day to kind of be on the front end of strategy and kind of see what you’ve got from there.”

They got beat by Shane Van Gisbergen and it comes with all the perks of winning a regular season race.

And again, while Van Gisbergen is going to continue to advance on ovals, he has three more chances to win road course races and add to his playoff point total too. No one will realistically expect him to challenge for a championship but it’s valuable experience within the playoff pressure cooker and one that will serve him in the years to come.

“Now we’re trying to get as many playoff points as we can,” Van Gisbergen said. “Yeah, I guess it does take some pressure off because we can freestyle a little bit more, but every race we go to, the expectation is going to be there.”

Take Two

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. gave Carson Hocevar a mulligan and now it’s been used up.

Just two weeks after their incident at Nashville Superspeedway, one that left Stenhouse fuming over an incident between them, another one happened on Sunday in Mexico City and it doesn’t sound like words will be enough.

Stenhouse spun with 10 laps to go due to contact from Hocevar in the stadium section. Hocevar was a lap down. It cost Stenhouse a chance at a top-20.

As soon as the race ended, Stenhouse leaned into the window of the Spire Motorsports No. 77 and made himself very clear. He told Hocevar that when they get back to the United States, there would be consequences.

“I’m gonna beat your ass,” said Stenhouse when he leaned in. “You’re a lap down, you got nothing to do, why’d you run right into me?”

Hocevar tried to say ‘I know’ and apologize but Stenhouse wasn’t having it.

“I don’t give a damn,” Stenhouse said before promising to ‘beat your ass’ again upon returning Stateside.

Hocevar again was apologetic in an interview with NASCAR.com.

“I mean, I didn’t really hear him,” Hocevar said, “but I mean, I know he was very mad and I was very apologetic.”

“I just got left and in the marbles and slid a lot longer than I expected. So yeah, I mean, obviously number one, not somebody I would never want to hit again. But number two, just yeah, I wasn’t racing anything. I was just logging laps, just trying to wait on a yellow and maybe see if we could put our day back together. But yeah, I just hit a curb wrong and got in the marbles and slid all the way through the corner. So I tried to turn left and avoid him, but just really, really sloppy day by me, and then that was another incident of the day that was really just sloppy.”

Maybe a kid that had never been out of the country until Thursday should ever give an opinion about what any place is like other than Portage, Michigan.

When I answered that question on a stream, I was skeptical about the trip so far and believed everything I read or heard…

— Carson Hocevar (@CarsonHocevar) June 16, 2025

CDMX 2026?

How would NASCAR’s EVP and chief venue and racing innovation officer Ben Kennedy sum up this week in Mexico City?

“Proud.”

Kennedy says he doesn’t have the exact attendance figure, and NASCAR doesn’t share those publicly anymore anyway, but said the powers that be from Daytona and Charlotte were ‘happy’ with the turnout.

Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez seats 110,000 people so the visual of empty seats drew some skepticism. Television also didn’t account for fans who roamed the ground level, choosing to go from section-to-section, which is part of the road racing culture.

Kennedy would not commit to returning to Mexico City next season even though NASCAR and event promoters OCESA both have a mutual option to do so should both parties agree.

Why wouldn’t NASCAR be back next season?

“As we’re going through the planning of putting together the pieces of the 2026 schedule, there are a lot of dominoes that need to fall,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy said NASCAR achieved its primary goal this week, which was introducing a new audience to the sport.

“We had a lot of fans come from the United States. We had a ton of fans from Mexico,” Kennedy said. “Ninety percent of the people that came to this event were from Mexico. Forty four percent from Mexico City, so a really strong contingent of fans – a lot of people that have been avid followers of our sport, a lot of first-time fans and confident a lot of new fans coming out of this weekend, as well.

“I’m really proud of our sport today and this weekend and thankful for everyone that made it happen.”

Results

Provisional Playoff Grid

Kyle Larson WWW
Christopher Bell WWW
Denny Hamlin WWW
William Byron W
Ryan Blaney W
Ross Chastain W
Joey Logano W
Austin Cindric W
Josh Berry W
Shane Van Gisbergen W
Chase Elliott +146
Tyler Reddick +123
Bubba Wallace +57
Chase Briscoe +39
Alex Bowman +22
Chris Buescher +19
—
Ryan Preece -19
Michael McDowell -43
AJ Allmendinger -45
Kyle Busch -50
Carson Hocevar -60
Ricky Stenhouse -61
Erik Jones -62
John Hunter Nemechek -72
Ty Gibbs -77
Zane Smith -86
Todd Gilliland -87
Austin Dillon -89
Daniel Suarez -99
Justin Haley -126
Ty Dillon -137
Brad Keselowski -140
Noah Gragson -142
Cole Custer -169