Shane van Gisbergen runs away from the field, wins inaugural Cup Series race at Mexico City

For the second time in his career, Shane van Gisbergen is a winner in the NASCAR Cup Series, and he is on his way to the playoffs. SVG gets it done again in an inaugural race. First, on the streets of Chicago, now at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.

The folks in New Zealand and Australia are going to be cheering for their driver today. Trackhouse Racing does it again with Shane van Gisbergen. He won the second stage and went on to win the race.

SVG showed up late to Mexico City due to his plane having a mechanical failure on takeoff. Trackhouse only had three to four crew members on each car for practice. He had to predict the weather, and race on wet-weather tires to start the race. No mistakes, perfect race, and he walks away with a win.

SHANE VAN GISBERGEN WINS IN MEXICO CITY! pic.twitter.com/gcLi9NFibS

— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) June 15, 2025

On top of his travel woes, Shane van Gisbergen was sick before the race today. He felt horrible. He still started on the pole and finished more than 16 seconds ahead of second place, Christopher Bell.

NASCAR is truly international.

Rain on Lap 1 changes race to wet weather conditions

As soon as this race started, the rain began to fall. That forced NASCAR to throw the caution flag and allow teams to go to pit road, if they chose to do so, to put on wet-weather tires. Ty Gibbs and Shane van Gisbergen were battling the entire stage.

Both Austin Cindric and Chris Buescher stayed out on slick tires. That was not the best idea. But to their credit, they didn’t spin out like Kyle Busch did on his wet-weather tires. That spin by Busch took him and Kyle Larson out of this race.

With a lot of chaos in that first stage, things began to calm down as the runs went on. Drivers were fighting for every position on the restarts. Ryan Preece stayed out to win his second stage of the season.

Shane van Gisbergen takes Stage 2 at Mexico City

The only caution for cause in Stage 2 came when Ryan Truex was spun out. Truex subbed in for Denny Hamlin this weekend as Hamlin stayed home following the birth of his son on Wednesday.

Again, it was all Ty Gibbs and Shane van Gisbergen in this stage. Those two were by far the best drivers and cars this entire race, and it showed with how many laps they led. This stage ended a bit differently than the first, as crew chiefs felt rain was going to come and change things at any moment.

SVG stayed out and picked up the win in the second stage. His performance in this race likely settles the Rookie of the Year battle against Riley Herbst. Both have earned so few points this season that any kind of stage win or top-five finish will be the deciding factor in that race.

Everything set up for an electric final stage. These drivers were done playing nice and ready to rough each other up for every position and every point in Mexico City.

SVG wins by 16.5 seconds in Mexico City

With the rain holding off in the latter stages of this race, Shane van Gisbergen had free rein to do what he does best. No worries about the weather. The only thing that was going to derail this race was a late caution to give Christopher Bell and Chase Elliott a shot.

There were 30+ green flag laps to finish this race and that gave SVG plenty of time to focus. He hit his marks and was damn near perfect. There was a time when van Gisbergen was only a couple of seconds ahead of Bell. Before you knew it, he had put a 16-second gap on the JGR driver for the lead.

No one does road courses better than Shane van Gisbergen. This will also give him the Rookie of the Year award for 2025. Riley Herbst likely won’t be able to win a race and challenge SVG for ROY. A big deal for the Kiwi. But today, the win is all that matters.