Shane van Gisbergen remained a ringer in NASCAR Cup Series inaugural events with left and right turns, winning in the circuit’s debut at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City.
The Trackhouse Racing driver qualified for the playoffs with his second career victory, leading the final 32 laps in his No. 88 Chevrolet and easily outdistancing Christopher Bell by more than 16 seconds. It was the first Cup win for van Gisbergen since the New Zealand native won in his series debut — the inaugural 2023 street race in Chicago.
“What a week, I’ve really enjoyed myself,” van Gisbergen told Prime’s Marty Snider, who reported the three-time Supercars champion had gotten tips from four-time Formula One champion Max Verstappen before the race about the track (which also plays host to F1).
The Trackhouse Racing driver turned in a dominant performance for his second career Cup victory.
Snider also said van Gisbergen was dealing with a prerace stomach bug, but he still managed to lead a race-high 60 of 100 laps after starting from the pole position.
“I felt pretty rubbish today,” van Gisbergen said. “Our car was amazing. I think (Ty Gibbs) was close. That list stint, man, what a pleasure just ripping lap after lap. Watching them get smaller in the mirror. Unreal.”
Chase Elliott finished third, followed by Alex Bowman and Michael McDowell.
John Hunter Nemechek, Chase Briscoe, Cole Custer, William Byron and Chris Buescher rounded out the top 10.
Gibbs finished 11th despite leading three times for 27 laps before a midrace caution burned the No. 54 Toyota, which had elected to stay on track longer than van Gisbergen during a green-flag cycle. Gibbs was in 11th when the race restarted on Lap 69 of 100 but was unable to make progress and slipped to 15th before recovering in the closing laps.
“Sometimes life just doesn’t work out for you,” said Gibbs, who also had been frustrated by a fuel strategy last week after finishing third at Michigan. “You just have to keep digging.”
The race was slowed by six caution flags but went green for the final 33 laps as the skies cleared from a threatening forecast that affected the first half of the race.
The Trackhouse Racing driver will race for a championship despite being currently ranked outside the top 30 in the points standings.
The inclement weather arrived just after the green flag, beginning a day filled with strategy gambles and predictions based on the radar.
The caution flew on Lap 1 when the rain began, allowing for teams to make competitive pit stops for wet-weather tires. Chris Buescher and Austin Cindric elected to stay on track with slick tires, but they were both gobbled up quickly on the restart.
Buescher fell from first to 16th within a few laps, and Cindric dropped to 10th. Their freefall was stemmed by a yellow flag for Kyle Busch, who lost control on Turn 1 entry of the seventh lap. His crash collected seven other drivers, including Kyle Larson (who fell more than 30 laps down with damage).
“Just in the rain, and I went down into 11 and got on the brakes pretty hard,” Busch told Snider on Prime. “Everything was fine, everything was comfortable, stopped really good. And I’m like, ‘OK, I can be a little more aggressive getting into 1,” and I figured it was going to be fine, and as soon as I went to the brakes, it was like being on ice, and I was just sliding.
“About a second and a half or so, I was trying to figure out which direction to go, and I was like, ‘I’ve got to turn this thing around backward, because I’m going to nail some people.’ Hate it for all those involved in my mishap. Hate it for RCR, ECR. The car in qualifying was really good, and I felt we were going to be really sporty in the dry. I hate that the rain came, and now it’s nice and dry. Just have to go fight for more points in another week.”
At the front, the battle began between van Gisbergen and Gibbs, who swapped the lead while choosing to pit just before the end of the first stage. They traded the lead twice again after the Stage 2 restart on Lap 25.
Their strategies split at the end of the second stage, though, as Gibbs elected to pit for four tires with two laps remaining while van Gisbergen stayed on track to win the stage and gamble that a nearby shower might force everyone into the pits again while he was leading.
The rain held off, though, and Gibbs was able to rally from 15th to fourth over the first 10 laps of the last stage while van Gisbergen battled for first with Bell before settling into a lead of nearly 5 seconds.
But after the final yellow, van Gisbergen zoomed to a big lead as Gibbs was stuck in the pack, and the drama evaporated over the last 30 laps. The final memorable moment came after the checkered flag when Ricky Stenhouse Jr. confronted Carson Hocevar after they had their second incident in three weeks.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s comments were caught by Carson Hocevar’s in-car camera after the race.
After winning Saturday’s Xfinity race, Mexican native Daniel Suarez finished 19th.
“Our race was up and down,” he said. “In the rain, we were decent, and then once the racetrack started drying out, I don’t feel like we were great, but we were still in the hunt. Unfortunately, the gamble didn’t work out. Honestly, I felt like today I gave my best, and it just wasn’t good enough. I wish I was in the mix a little bit more, fighting up front. It just wasn’t in the cards today. I’m happy with our performance, because I felt I left everything on the table. The car was good. Not great but good, and the strategy didn’t work out. Nobody’s fault.
“It’s definitely a weekend I will remember for a very long time.”
Stage 1 winner: Ryan Preece
Stage 2 winner: van Gisbergen
Next up: Sunday, June 22, 2 p.m. ET at Pocono Raceway on Prime.
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