Trackhouse's plan comes together as SVG wins again in NASCAR Chicago

This is all going according to plan for Shane Van Gisbergen, Justin Marks and Trackhouse Racing.

Consider this:

It’s not entirely out of the question that Shane Van Gisbergen could enter the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs as one of the top-seeded drivers in his rookie season. And even if you can’t count on him to make a run towards the final four this autumn, 2025 has been a wildly successful season by all the metrics that count the most.

After winning for the second time this season -- Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez and now the Grant Park Street Circuit -- Van Gisbergen will enter the race next weekend at Sonoma Raceway with a chance to tie Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell in victories.

“Yeah, it's amazing,” said Van Gisbergen during his post-race press conference. “We've had a pretty good year on road courses so far and had glimpses of speed but I really think we've developed our car as well. There have been some areas that we haven't been good at, where we've been lacking a little bit, but our car setup has drastically changed over the past few road races and it’s been great trying to understand this car and be able to try stuff.”

Translation: Van Gisbergen is now fully entrenched as a Cup Series full-timer and is totally comfortable with what he wants out of this car at every track under his specialized subdiscipline.

“I'm slowly starting to understand it but there's still some things we can be a lot better at,” Van Gisbergen said. “But try again next week and we can just keep trying to be better.”

So says the guy that won the pole by a half second over Michael McDowell and drove through the field even after a pit stop required him to give up track position.  

His crew chief, Stephen Doran, called him ‘a machine’ in these situations.

“He makes no mistakes and he just waits until somebody misses an apex in front of him and he pounces on them,” Doran said. “He just drives through the field. You saw it yesterday and today.”

And with his win in Mexico City, ‘SVG’ feels unleashed on these circuits with nothing to lose and everything more to gain.

“We're near in the position now where you have that playoff spot, you can take more risk,” Van Gisbergen said. “It's been enjoyable figuring this car out and getting outside the box a little bit. “

Some will bemoan the fact that Gisbergen is now starting to give himself a fighting chance to get through the Round of 16, giving himself a chance at a Round of 8 that features the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval, but this is exactly what Marks envisioned in securing a third charter for the three-time Supercars champion.

In winning once, Van Gisbergen immediately secured a top-16 championship finish despite a rookie season that had him mired outside the top-25 all year. In winning twice, ‘SVG’ is giving himself a chance make a prolonged run towards October.

There are still two more road course races in the regular season at Sonoma and Watkins Glen and that is to say nothing of the gradual improvement Van Gisbergen is making on ovals too.

“We wouldn't be doing this if we thought we could go win road courses and we know we're not going to run that good on the ovals because he's never done it before,” Marks said. “At this level of the game, you have to be a complete package.

“For his level of intelligence and how he studies and how he adapts and how he learns, there's a real opportunity here for him to figure the ovals out and get fast at the ovals and be a complete Cup driver.”

‘SVG’ is 36 and has already made the jump from unable to race inside the top-25 to now having days where he runs top-15. The package isn’t complete yet but every win at the tracks where he should contend offsets the cost of development.

“He's pretty consistently top 20 now on the ovals when he started running kind of like 30th to 32nd, and I think that that development is just going to continue,” Marks said. "

“I think when you think about the project, we've got somebody who's talented and that we can make a Cup driver out of, and while he learns in the meantime, we can win a ton of road courses and punch that ticket to the playoffs and give our sponsors a ton of return for their investment.”

Again, the plan.

Van Gisbergen, much like last year in his maiden Xfinity Series campaign, won three times and was able to at least have a chance to fight his way through the oval portion of the playoffs.

No matter what happens the rest of the regular season, he will again have that chance in September.

“Yeah, that first round is going to be very difficult,” Van Gisbergen said. “It's got one track I haven't been to, Gateway. It's got my favorite oval in it, Darlington. I love that place. And then Bristol, which is what I've found the most difficult track.

“I feel like I may as well be driving the other way there. It's so hard. It's some pretty difficult places for me. But I feel like we're making still massive leaps on the oval, and there's still a few weeks left to keep getting better.”

Marks is going to continue to bet on ‘SVG,’ because they already have one of the most elite road racers in NASCAR history but also one he believes has the mental acuity to embrace every challenge.

“In my experience driving race cars for 20 years, it's his racing IQ,” Marks said. “It's how strategic he can think while he's on the limit of the race car.

“A lot of drivers, it takes all of your mental bandwidth to drive the car fast, and Shane is one of these guys that can drive the car at the limit but be thinking bigger picture stuff. He knows where he is in the race, and he knows how to -- he's great at managing his tires, his equipment, all that kind of stuff.”

And sure, he’s mostly referring to his road and street racing intellect but that carries over to race craft of every kind of sub-discipline.

“I think for his talent profile specifically, street races are just -- they come very, very naturally to him,” Marks said. “He's got a lot of experience doing it in the V8 Supercars series but I think in races like this where everybody is working so hard just to get the apexes and get out of the corner and right way and all of that, he does that just naturally while he's thinking about bigger picture stuff so he can really put the whole race together in a super impressive way.”\

Delayed reaction

The race ended under somewhat controversial circumstances as a caution was triggered right after Shane Van Gisbergen had taken the white flag.

That meant the next flag would end the race and no opportunities for a green-white-checkered finish.

Caution is out! SHANE VAN GISBERGEN WINS (again) ON THE STREETS OF CHICAGO. pic.twitter.com/UlpeRexCNN

— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) July 6, 2025

Cody Ware appeared to have lost his brakes and drilled the tire barrier in Turn 6. He was approaching 100 mph at the time of contact. He radioed over to his team and said he needed help. NASCAR waited 35 seconds to call the caution.

On one hand, there is the safety element but also NASCAR’s competitive facing inconsistencies of whether they wait to throw a caution or doing so immediately with cars approaching a race ending white flag.

NASCAR’s reaction:

“The race director saw the car in the tire packs. Obviously, seeing the in-car, the hit was a big one – but when we see a car in the tire packs, there’s no way to know the severity.

"As we always do on road courses, we wait to see if the car can pull out and drive off – like the 5 car did in that same area last year. Always hope for a green flag finish. Once the window net came down and the driver climbed out, we needed to throw the caution."

Renewed tension

NASCAR

For the second straight year, Alex Bowman and Bubba Wallace leave The Second City in conflict following a run-in that left both frustrated with each other.

They were racing for sixth, seventh and eighth alongside Tyler Reddick when they started slamming into each other. They also cut each other off and the back-and-forth concluded with Wallace going around in Turn 2 with five laps to go.

It's getting physical in this In-Season Challenge matchup between @BubbaWallace and @Alex_Bowman! 💥 pic.twitter.com/fQb9EpTKD9

— NASCAR (@NASCAR) July 6, 2025

Bowman went onto finish eighth and won his In Season Challenge match-up with Wallace.

“I thought we had squashed our beef, but clearly not,” Bowman told Jeff Gluck of The Athletic after the race. “I followed (Reddick) past him, he ran me into the inside wall into Turn 8. Still felt like I passed him clean, and he absolutely demolished me into Turn 12. I gave it back a little into Turn 1, and then he demolished me again into Turn 2, ran me into the outside wall. I’m just a pinball between him and the outside wall at that point. Certainly, not trying to crash anybody.

“I’d have to watch it back to be certain, but I felt like he kind of did it to himself because I kept getting pinballed between him and the outside wall. Wasn’t the intention, but I don’t know — we had way fresher tires than him. I get the In-Season tournament is a lot, but at that point, I’m just trying to finish the best I can. I wasn’t really thinking about that. Don’t know if that’s what it was about or what, but unfortunate that it happened. It tore up our car a bunch and killed his day.”

Bubba Wallace with some words after the #NASCAR race in Chicago. pic.twitter.com/10vFFSJ3cr

— Matt Moreno (@TheMattMoreno) July 6, 2025

The two had a run-in during this race last year, with Wallace turned sideways off the nose of Bowman’s No. 48 early in that race. Wallace recovered to finish 13th but Bowman won. Wallace door slammed Bowman during the cool-down lap and incurred a $50,000 fine from NASCAR days later.

1, 5, 22 and 47

TNT Sports

No stranger to interpersonal conflict between them, Joey Logano called for a potential penalty against Ross Chastain for what he felt was a signaled retaliation against him for something that wasn’t even his doing.

Chastain got sideways due to a nudge from Kyle Larson as the three of them were part of a gaggle of cars racing just outside of the top-5 with 13 laps to go. All involved were bouncing off each other.

Here is the set of incidents that led to the post-race conversation between Joey Logano and Ross Chastain. Both were involved in the Turn 1 skirmish with 12 laps to go, and then in Turn 2, it looked like Chastain sent Logano for a ride into Stenhouse. #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/RUnmOeywnF

— Toby Christie (@Toby_Christie) July 6, 2025

Stenhouse hit Chastain, which collected Logano. Chastain seemed to identify Logano as the source of his frustrations and spun him into the tire barrier, which also collected Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

Logano confronted Chastain after the race.

“Do I think so? Yes, he admitted he wrecked me on purpose,” Logano told FOX Sports’ Bob Pockrass. “He admitted it. Which means he should get fined if he admittedly wrecked someone on purpose. That’s not okay.

“Typical Ross, He just sees red and does dumb stuff. That’s all. That’s twice this year on road courses at the end of these things I’ve been cost by Ross. I’m just over it.”

And then this from Stenhouse, a symbolic smashing of a watermelon, the signature item of Chastain.

pic.twitter.com/h7XEHtMUI9

— Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (@StenhouseJr) July 6, 2025

Parking lot

NASCAR

Disaster struck just three laps into the race when Carson Hocevar clipped the wall at the apex of Turn 10 and looped around in front of oncoming traffic.

Brad Keselowski, Daniel Suarez, Austin Dillon, Todd Gilliland, Riley Herbst and Supercars champion Will Brown all drove into it. This resulted in a 16 minute red flag.

“I didn’t see it until the last second,” Keselowski said. “I slowed down and I actually felt I was gonna 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.”

Playoff implications

Michael McDowell took the fight to ‘SVG’ for much of the first half. The Spire Motorsports No. 71 won the first stage and planned to stay out to win the second stage too before a stuck throttle ended his race.

McDowell, who started second but immediately took the lead, looked to have the only car capable of challenging the eventual winner.

It was a hugely disappointing result for McDowell who in all likelihood needs to win to advance into The Round of 16. Like Van Gisbergen, McDowell is a road racing specialist who also is more well rounded at this stage with 20 years of NASCAR experience under him.

But the battle on the cutline is perilous for a lot would be contenders. What happened to Wallace has him teetering on the edge of a playoff spot after a strong start to his season. That with another strong road course run by Ryan Preece has them separated by just three points.

But there's more to it too because if McDowell or any other winless road course specialist wins at Sonoma or Watkins Glen, it moves the cutline up.

That's to say nothing of the regular season wild card finale at Daytona too.

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