Entering Sunday’s race, Shane van Gisbergen knew he was going to have a lot of work to do from the start. Due to an unapproved adjustment on Saturday, his usual crew chief Stephen Doran was ejected, and SVG owed NASCAR a stop-and-go penalty after the green flag.
He went a lap down and spent most of the race trying to make that ground back up. However, once he did get back on the lead lap, SVG quickly moved forward.
While there was some carnage in the closing laps of the race, van Gisbergen was already a contender for a top ten finish and battled his teammate Ross Chastain door-to-door to be the highest-placing Trackhouse driver.
The only misstep for SVG came when he was in the middle of a three-wide situation at the exit of Turn 2 with William Byron to his inside and Alex Bowman to his outside. Van Gisbergen pushed up in an awkward aero spot and squeezed Bowman into the outside wall, derailing the No. 48’s day.
On the final restart, van Gisbergen held on to finish 10th — his best Cup finish yet on an oval. His previous best was 12th at Martinsville in the fall of 2024, and his best oval run this year was a pair of 14th-place finishes at the Coke 600 and Richmond.
“It was really cool to get a top 10 finish at Kansas Speedway,” said SVG after the race. “It was good to do it in a Red Bull car. We’ve had some really cool partners this year and stoked to be able to do it here at Kansas Speedway. I feel like we’re getting better and better at these tracks. It was difficult starting a lap down and having that penalty, but Chais Eliason (interim crew chief) did a great job. We had really good speed at points of the race, so I’m stoked to get a top 10. I’m over the moon with that.”
This impressive finish comes one week after another strong oval showing at New Hampshire, where SVG reached as high as fifth and scored stage points on an oval for the very first time. Unfortunately, that promising day ended in a mid-race wreck after Brad Keselowski forced it five-wide on a restart.
NASCAR now heads to the Charlotte Roval for the final road course race of 2025, and everyone expects SVG to be the driver to beat: he’s won the last four road and street course events on the schedule this year.
