Who… should you be talking about after the race?
When it comes to navigating the streets of Chicago in a NASCAR stock car, nobody does it better than Shane van Gisbergen. For the second time in three Cup races through downtown Chicago, van Gisbergen made the tight and tricky 12-turn course look easy, holding off a hungry Ty Gibbs and a charging Tyler Reddick in the Grant Park 165 until a caution ended the day just under a lap shy of the finish.
Even without the caution, van Gisbergen had the race well in hand, opening up a large and growing lead after the final restart of the day. Gibbs tried to hang around, but van Gisbergen dispatched him easily on what would be the final restart of the day.
Van Gisbergen started on pole but surrendered the lead to Michael McDowell on the first lap. Trailing McDowell as the first stage was coming to a close, van Gisbergen pitted with most of the lead lap cars, a strategy that worked for the No. 88 team as SVG was able to work his way forward and put himself in a good position in the second half of the race.
Short of one large pileup on the third lap, caused by a spinning Carson Hocevar, the race was a clean one with only a handful of single-car spins for the rest of the day. Racing was intense throughout the pack, with discussions on pit road afterwards between Alex Bowman and Bubba Wallace as well as between Joey Logano and Ross Chastain. Once van Gisbergen took the lead for the second time on lap 60 from a fading Chase Briscoe, it was smooth sailing to the finish for him.
It’s van Gisbergen’s third career Cup win and second of 2025. He led twice for a total of 26 laps.
Thanks to his win in Saturday’s (July 5)Xfinity Series race, van Gisbergen joins Kyle Busch as the only drivers to win two races in a weekend, both from the pole. He also becomes the winningest foreign-born driver in Cup Series history.
Reddick had the fastest lap of the day on lap 71.
On the other hand…
Nobody led more laps in Chicago than McDowell. McDowell took command in the second corner on lap one and never looked back, pulling away from van Gisbergen and leading the first 31 laps of the day, winning the first stage for Spire Motorsports’ first-ever stage victory. It appeared that McDowell was the only driver who might have had anything for van Gisbergen, who was unable to run him back down.
Unfortunately for McDowell, a broken throttle in stage two sent him to the garage for repairs and while the No. 71 team did get McDowell back on track, he finished 22 laps down in 32nd.
What… does this mean for the points standings?
William Byron’s three-week slide continued in Chicago with a 40th-place finish after a transmission problem ended his day after just one lap. He’s still the point leader, but his lead has shrunk from 37 to just 13 points over teammate Chase Elliott. Fellow Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson lurks six points behind Elliott, with Denny Hamlin and Reddick rounding out the top five after Reddick displaced Christopher Bell from the fifth spot.
Bell now sits sixth in the standings ahead of Ryan Blaney, Chastain, Briscoe and Bowman in the top 10. Chris Buescher fell from ninth to 11th after mechanical issues.
Van Gisbergen was the biggest mover of the day thanks to his win, gaining five positions to move from 32nd to 27th. Kyle Busch also made big gains, moving up four positions from 20th to 16th after a fifth-place run. Meanwhile, a four-point gain for Gibbs moves him into 19th. John Hunter Nemechek gained three spots, moving up to 20th after finishing 15th.
On the flip side, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. took a four-spot slide down to 25th, and both Austin Cindric and Hocevar slipped three positions this week.
Where… did he come from?
A pair of veterans reminded everyone that a race isn’t over until the checkered flag. Hamlin started dead last after losing an engine in practice, but he worked his way forward all day with strong strategy. Hamlin didn’t have the speed to challenge van Gisbergen on the final restart, but he gained 36 spots on the day and salvaged a top five with his fourth-place result.
Meanwhile, Busch’s weekend got off to a solid start with a sixth-place qualifying effort. The day was not without its challenges for the two-time champion, however, as he was penalized for driving through too many pit stalls on his first stop and had to make a pass-through on pit road. Later, racing in traffic, Busch went for a spin that cost him even more track position, though his No. 8 car received very little damage.
Busch still had enough speed and time on his side to climb his way back to a very respectable fifth-place result. The top five stopped a three-race stretch with finishes of 20th or worse for Busch, and the series heads to a track where he’s had success in the past. Are things looking up for the Shrub at last?
While Busch and Hamlin were bettering their days, Katherine Legge was also having a solid run. She drove from 33rd to finish a solid 19th in the underfunded part-time No. 78 for owner BJ McLeod. In her third career start, Legge is the first woman driver to score a top-20 finish since Danica Patrick in 2017.
When… was the moment of truth?
Would one final restart have changed anything? NASCAR came within seconds of finding out as Cody Ware spun into a tire barrier on the penultimate lap. The yellow flag didn’t make an appearance for several seconds, however, and by the time it did, van Gisbergen had already taken the white flag, ending the race.
Reaction was mixed, but did NASCAR make the right call?
With the information available at the moment of the crash, yes. Ware hit the tire barrier hard, but the severity of the hit wasn’t immediately obvious to NASCAR, because the tire barrier obscured the visual and only upon viewing the telemetry was the truth revealed. That in itself is a safety issue that absolutely needs to be addressed. Are tire barriers doing their jobs if cars drive more under them than into them? Long-term, that has to be studied and fixed. Full stop.
However, NASCAR was consistent with its calls all day, giving the cars involved in single-car incidents time to see if they could get going again. Many did, no caution needed.
Given that, NASCAR made the right call at the time with the information they had immediately available. The mistake comes in not having that information in some form, be it the telemetry from the car or a corner worker. The race call was consistent, but it reveals a much bigger problem. How that’s addressed will overshadow the fact that there wasn’t an overtime finish to cause some chaos.
Why… should you be paying attention this week?
There are now just seven races left for teams to find their way into the playoffs, and for drivers neat the cut line, that means they can’t afford any mistakes.
The bad news for drivers who don’t look forward to road courses is that the Cup Series is right back at it this week, this time paying the annual visit to Sonoma Raceway. Just three drivers enter the weekend with wins in wine country: Busch and Larson with two apiece and Daniel Suarez with a single victory.
Busch and Suarez are still looking for wins this year. Between the two, Busch has an advantage. He was solid on the streets of Chicago, and Suarez is in a lame duck situation after announcing his departure from the No. 99 at the end of the year.
Elliott does not have a win at Sonoma, but he does have the highest average finish among the regulars at 11.1. Other winless drivers with strong averages are Chastain and Buescher. After having engine issues in Chicago, Buescher is dangling closer to the cut line, so he’ll be gunning for the win.
Of course, van Gisbergen will also be a favorite at road courses. He won the Xfinity race at Sonoma last year, but Sunday will mark the New Zealand native’s Cup debut at the track.
How… did this race stack up?
The sample size for this street course is small, as Sunday’s race was the third race in a three-race deal with the city, but it was a clear winner in terms of the quality of the racing.
Why? No rain.
This time, the track was dry for the entire race, which resulted in racing throughout the field and drivers not having to tiptoe through some areas. There were fewer large incidents but still plenty of action.
That’s also partially due to drivers and teams having a little experience. Even without rain tires in the equation, there were multiple strategies at play throughout the day.
It appears as if the circuit‘s run on the schedule could be at the finish line, though. While many kinks were worked out after the first year, whether the return on investment for the City of Chicago was high enough to discuss a longer run is anyone’s guess. With speculation swirling around a return to the virtually abandoned Chicagoland Speedway as well as a possible street race in San Diego, it seems as though NASCAR is likely to move on.
Which, to everyone but SVG and his fans, is probably okay in the overall scheme of things.
Amy is an 20-year veteran NASCAR writer and a six-time National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) writing award winner, including first place awards for both columns and race coverage. As well as serving as Photo Editor, Amy writes The Big 6 (Mondays) after every NASCAR Cup Series race. She can also be found working on her bi-weekly columns Holding A Pretty Wheel (Tuesdays) and Only Yesterday (Wednesdays). A New Hampshire native whose heart is in North Carolina, Amy’s work credits have extended everywhere from driver Kenny Wallace’s website to Athlon Sports. She can also be heard weekly as a panelist on the Hard Left Turn podcast that can be found on AccessWDUN.com's Around the Track page.