Shane Van Gisbergen works with crew in the garage area during qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series Grant Park 220 at the Chicago Street Course.
Photo: AFP
New Zealand’s Shane van Gisbergen stunned the stock-car racing world on Monday by winning the Grant Park 220 in Chicago, the first street-course race in NASCAR’s history.
In his first Cup Series start, van Gisbergen — a three-time Australian Supercars champion — won a two-lap, overtime shootout against Justin Haley.
The 34-year-old van Gisbergen passed Haley on the 2.2-mile, 12-turn Chicago Street Course before a late caution forced overtime.
He recorded the historic victory in the 78-lap outing after NASCAR chose to shorten the rain-delayed race by 25 laps due to a lack of daylight. It was originally 100 laps.
The Trackhouse Racing driver became the first driver to win in his series debut since Johnny Rutherford won at Daytona in 1963 in a qualifying race, which was considered a points race at the time.
van Gisbergen is the seventh driver all-time to win in his debut.
It was the second consecutive win for Trackhouse Racing, which won at Nashville last weekend behind Ross Chastain.
Following Haley were Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson and Kyle Busch.
England native and 2009 Formula One world champion Jenson Button ended up 21st.
Due to the extremely wet conditions and water buildup, NASCAR elected to start the 100-lap race in a single-file formation after a red-flag condition postponed the firing of engines for over an hour.
Christopher Bell grabbed his first stage win this season on Lap 20 — a non-caution stage — by leading Tyler Reddick by over two seconds with van Gisbergen trailing in third.
In the second stage, the trio — all running on rain tyres — paced the way early in the segment with the Chicago skyline clearing up in the backdrop and the street course drying out.
After Alex Bowman’s No. 48 Chevy lost an engine, Bell also claimed Stage 2 by beating Larson to the fifth caution flag on Lap 44.
With only 18 circuits remaining, Reddick brought out the seventh caution when his No. 45 Toyota got stuck in the tyre barrier.
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