In yet another waxing of the field that has legitimized talk of him potentially becoming NASCAR’s best road racer ever, Shane van Gisbergen cruised to victory at Watkins Glen International, earning his fourth road course win in a row and his fourth overall this season. The former V8 Supercars champion’s four wins in 2025 sets a new record for the most in any Cup driver’s rookie season, and he is also now tied with Denny Hamlin for the most wins of any driver this season.
After becoming the first driver in NASCAR’s modern era to win in his Cup debut by emerging victorious in what was supposed to be a one-off start at Chicago in 2023, van Gisbergen embraced the challenge of racing NASCAR full-time, moving from his native New Zealand to the United States to run a partial Cup schedule in 2024 before going full-time this season. While he’s taken his lumps — including at Watkins Glen a year ago, when he was on the wrong end of a last lap pass for the win — van Gisbergen has become virtually unstoppable in NASCAR’s summer stretch of road course races, winning at Mexico City, Chicago, Sonoma and now Watkins Glen.
NASCAR 2025 race schedule, results: Complete list of Cup Series race dates, winners, tracks, locations
Steven Taranto
It’s put him not only in the playoffs, but has set him up to be one of the top seeds in the playoffs when they begin at Darlington later this month. And it’s also earned him a new contract with Trackhouse Racing, ensuring he’ll race in the U.S. for the next several years and allowing him to build on what is his growing road racing legend in NASCAR.
“That’s the stuff you dream about, right? I’m just a very lucky guy to get to drive for an amazing bunch of people and just execute,” van Gisbergen told NBC Sports before discussing his playoff prospects. “It ain’t gonna be easy, that’s for sure. The first round has some very difficult left hander tracks for me, but I’m getting better at it and I’m enjoying myself. It’s a challenge, but that’s why were and we’ll have a proper crack.”
Some 11 seconds behind van Gisbergen, the race was for second as Christopher Bell passed Chris Buescher on the final lap to take the runner-up spot. Buescher came across the finish line third, with William Byron in fourth and Chase Briscoe in fifth. Ryan Blaney, Daniel Suarez, Bubba Wallace, Tyler Reddick and Ross Chastain rounded out the top 10.
Buescher’s third-place finish, combined with a win in stage one, proved to be an 11-point swing in his favor in the battle for the final spot in the NASCAR playoffs. Buescher has now built his advantage over RFK Racing teammate Ryan Preece to 34 points with two races to go, as Preece wound up finishing 13th.
Reddick’s ninth-place finish now puts him 117 points above the cut line, putting him in position to potentially clinch a playoff spot on points. Alex Bowman ran 20th, but he continues to hold a relatively comfortable advantage of 60 points over the cut line. Meanwhile, at the top of the points standings, Byron built his lead in the regular season championship race to 42 points over Chase Elliott, whose 26th-place finish marked the first time he’s finished outside the top 20 all season.
One driver absent from Sunday’s race was Connor Zilisch, whose No. 87 team withdrew after a frightening incident on Saturday in which Zilisch slipped and fell off his car in Victory Lane while celebrating a win in the Xfinity Series. Zilisch, who broke his collarbone in the fall, was back at the racetrack on Sunday and told NBC Sports that his timetable to return to racing remains to be determined.
Go Bowling at The Glen results
- #88 – Shane van Gisbergen (R)
- #20 – Christopher Bell
- #17 – Chris Buescher
- #24 – William Byron
- #19 – Chase Briscoe
- #12 – Ryan Blaney
- #99 – Daniel Suarez
- #23 – Bubba Wallace
- #45 – Tyler Reddick
- #1 – Ross Chastain
- #16 – A.J. Allmendinger
- #43 – Erik Jones
- #60 – Ryan Preece
- #22 – Joey Logano
- #3 – Austin Dillon
- #2 – Austin Cindric
- #38 – Zane Smith
- #77 – Carson Hocevar
- #71 – Michael McDowell
- #48 – Alex Bowman
- #4 – Noah Gragson
- #8 – Kyle Busch
- #47 – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- #35 – Riley Herbst (R)
- #11 – Denny Hamlin
- #9 – Chase Elliott
- #7 – Justin Haley
- #34 – Todd Gilliland
- #51 – Cody Ware
- #10 – Ty Dillon
- #6 – Brad Keselowski
- #42 – John Hunter Nemechek
- #54 – Ty Gibbs
- #41 – Cole Custer
- #21 – Josh Berry
- #78 – Katherine Legge
- #66 – Josh Bilicki
- #44 – J.J. Yeley
- #5 – Kyle Larson
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