The history Shane van Gisbergen made with his Chicago NASCAR Cup win

Shane van Gisbergen remains near-unstoppable on the streets of Chicago. In five starts between the Xfinity and Cup Series, he has won four of them. The only race he attempted but didn’t manage to win was the Cup race in 2024, and that’s because he got wrecked out of the event.

With his latest victory, he joins Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson, and Christopher Bell as the only drivers with multiple Cup wins this year. That means he is also the winningest driver at Trackhouse this season, as Ross Chastain has one win (the Coke 600) while Daniel Suarez has none so far.

But this victory was also historic in several other meaningful ways. Here’s a look at some of the history the New Zealander is making as he dominates the road and street course scene in NASCAR:

The winningest foreign-born driver … ever

Shane van Gisbergen, Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet

Photo by: Chris Graythen – Getty Images

SVG won on debut at Chicago in 2023. Since then, he also won the inaugural Cup race in Mexico City earlier this year and now Chicago once again. With those three Cup wins, he has become the winningest foreign-born driver in the history of the NASCAR Cup Series. Juan Pablo Montoya, Daniel Suarez and fellow Supercars ace Marcos Ambrose all have two wins each.

Most wins by a rookie in nearly 20 years

SVG is a rookie in the NASCAR Cup Series and will likely collect Rookie of the Year honors. But with his two wins this season, he joins rare company. It’s the most wins by a Cup driver in their rookie season since Denny Hamlin in 2006. That year, Hamlin won two races, and with three more road courses on the 2025 schedule, SVG could absolutely beat that. The last time a Cup rookie won three races in their rookie season? That would be Tony Stewart back in 1999.

Winning at a pace not seen since Jimmie Johnson’s debut

Shane van Gisbergen, Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet

Photo by: James Gilbert / Getty Images

While SVG continues to slowly improve on ovals, his road course abilities have already put him in a category with seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson. Van Gisbergen has reached three Cup wins in just 33 career starts. That hasn’t been seen since Johnson won three races in his first 16 Cup starts during the 2002 season. For a more direct comparison, SVG’s win pace matches what Stewart did in 1999, who also won three races in his first 33 starts.

A very rare kind of weekend sweep

Sweeping a NASCAR weekend is hard enough, but to earn pole position AND win both races is another level of domination. SVG did just that this past weekend, winning from pole in Saturday’s Xfinity race before doing it again in Sunday’s Cup race. The last driver to do that was Kyle Busch at Indianapolis in 2016. Busch and SVG are now the only two drivers to have ever accomplished this feat.

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