Yahoo Autos Shane Van Gisbergen Wins Chicago, His First Ever NASCAR Start
When he debuted halfway through the 2007 V8 Supercars season, Shane van Gisbergen was the best prospect in Australian domestic racing. 499 starts, 80 wins, 174 podiums, three championships, and a Bathurst 1000 win later, he is firmly the second-best driver on the continent of his era. That made an announcement of a one-off NASCAR start with Trackhouse's ambitious Project 91 guest star entry exciting, but the significance of the crossover event paled in comparison to what van Gisbergen actually did in the car.
Today, Shane van Gisbergen became the first NASCAR driver to win in their first Cup Series start since IndyCar legend Johnny Rutherford won his Daytona 500 qualifying race for Smokey Yunick in 1963. He became the first road course specialist to win in a one-off effort since Indianapolis 500 winner and sports car racing folk hero Mark Donohue won for Team Penske at Riverside in 1973. Those are not just the achievements of legendary drivers employed by legendary teams, they are things that have not been done in 60 and 50 years.
The Supercars ace started the rain-delayed race from third, missing out on pole after both Denny Hamlin and Tyler Reddick beat his par time on their final laps of the qualifying session. He ran in the top five throughout the opening stages of the race, but a sudden announcement during a lap 50 caution that the race would be cut down from 100 laps to 75 by concerns about fading daylight left the field's leaders panicking to pit and, ultimately, resuming the race behind a dozen cars that had stopped earlier in advance of a potential issue with remaining daylight. Trackhouse's part-time pit crew also lost a few spots on the pit lane during the packed stop cycle.
That left van Gisbergen mired in the mid-field when a huge crash clogged the track. Kevin Harvick crashed and tried to re-join the cramped temporary Chicago track at its tightest point, creating a logjam that held up two lanes of the field. "SVG" made his way through the inside and avoided the crash, but the timing of the caution left all but two of the drivers who had made their way through re-starting behind those that did not.
Of the leading drivers before the race was shortened, only Tyler Reddick benefitted significantly from that. Reddick went on a charge from seventh on the following restart, getting up to fifth before finally crashing in turn 4. With primary strategy leaders van Gisbergen and Kyle Larson still floating around tenth on the next restart, that meant attention turned to Justin Haley and Austin Dillon, the leaders of the group that moved up on strategy. While cameras focused on their battle, and Dillon's eventual mistake that landed him in the wall, van Gisbergen charged through the field. He was fifth with fifteen to go, then up to third with ten to go. Then second, then he passed Justin Haley for the lead.
As that happened, the yellow flew for an unrelated crash. Haley led at the time, so van Gisbergen handed the lead back. He would have the lead again just two laps later, but, with two laps to go, Bubba Wallace crashed into Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in turn 1 and forced an overtime finish. One last test of van Gisbergen's resolve.
Shane van Gisbergen aced it. A day of single-file restarts mandated by earlier rains helped, but van Gisbergen once again went about building a lead on the final restart and went on to win the race over Haley.
In addition to everything else, it is also the first-ever win for the program that made this day possible. Trackhouse's Project 91 is an intentional effort to give stars from other forms of racing a chance to make NASCAR Cup Series starts in a car that can compete for a race win at the highest level, one Kimi Raikkonen has already taken up twice. The Justin Marks-owned team has already won a handful of races with noted wall-riding expert Ross Chastain and won another with full-timer Daniel Suarez last season, so their program suddenly has three race-winning cars despite only entering two full time.
In a post-race interview with NBC, van Gisbergen suggested that he would consider NASCAR after another full season in Australia. Presumably, that means he would head stateside as a 35-year-old rookie in 2025. That may seem like a big swing for a driver so far into their career, but it actually mirrors an even more audacious move made by the other face of Australian domestic auto racing through the 2010s. Scott McLaughlin, a New Zealander like van Gisbergen, moved to IndyCar at 28 after three Supercars championships of his own. He struggled in his first year adjusting to high-downforce cars, but he has since become a four-time winner. Now, there is a serious possibility that the two dominant forces in Australian Supercars are racing domestically in the United States in just 18 months.
Until then, the focus is on the significance of what just happened. In addition to everything else, Shane van Gisbergen is also the first-ever winner of a NASCAR Cup Series race held on a temporary street circuit. It is a monumental victory in so many ways, one of the most significant in the 75-year history of the series.
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