Shane van Gisbergen secures NASCAR Cup playoffs spot with Mexico City win

MEXICO CITY — Shane van Gisbergen secured his first-ever NASCAR Cup Series playoffs berth Sunday with his win in the Viva Mexico 250.

“SVG” started from the pole at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez and led five times for 60 of 100 laps – including the final 32 green-flag laps – to earn his second career Cup Series win.

“What a week. I have really enjoyed myself here. I felt pretty rubbish today,” SVG said. “Thank you to Safety Culture, Trackhouse, Chevy and these guys right here.” 

SVG’s next closest competitor was Ty Gibbs who ran second to SVG at the start of the final stage. Gibbs led after SVG pitted on lap 63 but didn’t make it to pit road before a caution flew for Carson Hocevar stopping on the track on lap 66.

The caution shuffled Gibbs back to 11th at the finish. Meanwhile, SVG gapped the field by 16.567 seconds – the largest margin of victory in the Cup Series since Kurt Busch’s fuel-mileage win at Texas Motor Speedway in November 2009.

“I think the 54 was close, but that last stint, what a pleasure to just be ripping lap after lap and to watch them all get smaller in the mirror. Unreal,” SVG said.

SVG jumped from 33rd to 30th in the championship points standings – a moot point with a win to lock him into the playoffs. Before his win, SVG’s had one Top-10 finish – sixth at Circuit of the Americas in March.

COTA winner Christopher Bell finished second after leading twice for four laps. He also finished second to SVG in the second stage.

“I was good; just not good enough,” Bell said. “The fact that I was a little bit off in both [Mexico City races], I think I just need to work on myself a little bit. [I need to] figure out what Shane was doing through a couple sections of the racetrack. My guys have been bringing really good road course cars for a long time now.”

Chase Elliott finished third. While Elliott has seven road course wins, he is still winless on the track type in the NextGen era, dating back to 2022. A third-place finish is his best road course finish since getting second at the Indianapolis road course in August 2023.

“We were kind of up and down all day and finally got going there a few runs from the end and [Alan Gustafson, crew chief] made us a good call to get us on tires,” Elliott said. “Finally had a restart go halfway decent and got a decent Top-3 out of it.”

Elliott scored a fourth-place finish at COTA in March.

Alex Bowman finished fourth a week after a hard crash at Michigan that raised questions about his status for Mexico City and his back, putting Anthony Alfredo on standby for the race.

MORE: Stand by for Bowman: Mexico City produces his best Cup finish in months

Michael McDowell rounded out the top-5 with his first top-5 finish of the 2025 season.. McDowell has now earned a top-5 finish in five consecutive seasons and seven of the last nine seasons. He sits 16th in points.