Shane van Gisbergen secures another victory, at Watkins Glen

A victory for Shane van Gisbergen (Trackhouse Racing) in a road circuit race NASCAR Cup Series, that's nothing out of the ordinary. However, the New Zealander innovated in his approach to victory, taking the risk, at the end of the race, of not pitting during a safety car period, even though, in theory, it was possible to finish the race on a single tank of fuel. The majority of the field decided not to follow his strategy.

When he pitted with 24 laps to go, "SVG" seemed destined to finish no better than a top-10 finish, as he rejoined the race nearly thirty seconds behind the leader, Ty Gibbs (Joe Gibbs Racing). The calculation was simple: car #97 needed to gain more than a second per lap on car #54 if he wanted any chance of catching up before the final lap. And so began the Jaws theme…

With incredible skill, Shane van Gisbergen achieved the feat in… 18 laps. The king of road courses ultimately won by more than seven seconds over Michael McDowell (Spire Motorsports), who was on the same strategy but had to wait until the final laps to overtake Ty Gibbs, who finished third. Fifth place went to championship leader Tyler Reddick (23XI Racing), who continues to dominate the overall standings and recovered remarkably well after a strategic error that saw him pit, believing a safety car period was about to begin following contact between two other cars. Ultimately, there was no yellow flag, and Reddick delivered another impressive comeback.

Next week, the NASCAR Cup Series moves to Dover for the non-championship All-Star Race, before the longest race of the season on May 24, with 600 miles (960 km) on the program in Charlotte.

NASCAR 2026 – Watkins Glen
The classification of the race

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