After claiming the pole for both the Xfinity Series and Cup Series races earlier in the day, Shane van Gisbergen rallied late to complete his perfect Saturday (July 5) with an Xfinity win in The Loop 110 on the streets of Chicago.
SVG’s fourth career Xfinity win is his second consecutive victory at the Chicago street course in the NXS, and he will pursue his second Windy City triumph in the Cup Series from the pole tomorrow.
Van Gisbergen outlasted young sensation Connor Zilisch in a duel of the series’ best road racing talents and JR Motorsports teammates over the closing laps. Zilisch held the lead late, but SVG got the better of him on the final restart with only two laps remaining and held on for the win.
“I thought it was gonna be a lost cause when the strategy went wrong, but it worked out well, thanks to JRM, car was a rocket,” van Gisbergen told The CW.
He also added about Zilisch, “He’s a great young driver, and that’s the first time I’ve really raced him, and I knew (on the restart) that was my opportunity, so I took it.”
Shane brought the smoke. 😶🌫️ pic.twitter.com/SWDgjKB6Cw
— NASCAR Xfinity (@NASCAR_Xfinity) July 5, 2025
Zilisch came up short of picking up what would have been his third career NXS road course win and third win of the 2025 season. In the pass for the win, van Gisbergen made slight contact with Zilisch and the No. 88 got into the outside wall.
“I guess I should have just not let him get to my bottom,” Zilisch told The CW. “I was clear there just barely on the front straight and just let him get to my inside, and he took advantage of it. I should have been a little more aggressive there. I just thought he was going to race me a little cleaner, so I’ll learn from it and move on.”
The restart that sealed the deal. pic.twitter.com/jfcI3HPtT8
— NASCAR Xfinity (@NASCAR_Xfinity) July 5, 2025
Sheldon Creed came home third and also collected a stage win. Austin Hill finished fourth ahead of Nick Sanchez, who backed up last week’s win with a solid fifth-place finish.
Jesse Love finished sixth ahead of Sammy Smith in seventh, Sam Mayer in eighth, Austin Green in ninth and Brennan Poole in tenth.
While van Gisbergen started from the pole, Zilisch, his JR Motorsports counterpart and primary competition on the day, was relegated to starting out back after a practice crash.
After briefly exchanging the early lead with Creed, van Gisbergen cruised to the stage one victory while Zilisch charged through the field to finally enter the top 10 nearing its conclusion.
While SVG, Creed, Hill and others stayed out at the end of the stage, drivers like Love and Taylor Gray pitted before the stage end to flip their track position for the start of the second segment.
Even after pitting at the stage end, van Gisbergen quickly regained the lead to open stage two and was once again set on cruise control out front until a caution with six laps remaining in the stage foiled his pit strategy.
Forced to pit while others who had already stopped stayed out, van Gisbergen found himself well down in the running order for the first time of the day while Love inherited the lead.
All of this also played right into the hand of Zilisch, who had positioned himself to capitalize on this timely caution by methodically working his way through the field in the early going.
Early in stage three, Zilisch had positioned himself inside the top five and started his charge to the lead while van Gisbergen found himself mired outside the top 10.
Zilisch made short work of Creed, Love and Hill to claim the lead with only 13 laps remaining. While van Gisbergen was coming on fresher tires, he would have to mount his charge through traffic.
van Gisbergen cleared into second with nine laps to go, by which time Zilisch had opened up a nearly four-second advantage. Turning some of the fastest laps of the afternoon, SVG quickly began carving into that deficit and appeared to be on track to catch Zilisch within the last couple of laps before a caution with six laps remaining erased that deficit entirely.
Restarting to Zilisch’s outside with only two laps to go, van Gisbergen was able to hang tough through the restart zone to stay even with Zilisch into turn 1 and emerged the leader after contact with his JR Motorsports teammate in the first corner.
Xfinity Series Loop 110 at Chicago Results
Zilisch gave chase, but he could not muster a move on van Gisbergen inside those final couple of laps, allowing SVG to capture his second Xfinity win on the streets of Chicago in as many years.
Something needs to be done about SVG. Last week caused 7 wrecks including a 20 car pileup in the Cup race and then today he hit Connor Zilisch so hard he knocked him over the fence. After the checkered flag he pulled a gun and started robbing fans. At least that’s is how the TV booth and Connor little t!tty baby Zilisch saw it.
Don’t know what channel you were watching, but I didn’t get that impression at all. Connor was certainly disappointed, but kept saying he learned a lot…which is what he expects in his rookie year. He also said he would have done the same going for the win on the last lap.
Connor should be glad it wasn’t Hamlin beside him!
NA$CAR has to do something about the way they drag out caution periods. I was surprised they waited until 2 laps to go to restart the event, leaving only one lap to get a caution for a GWC. They should have restarted with at least 3 for the caution and GWC.