NASCAR News: Van Gisbergen wins Cup pole in Mexico City

Shane van Gisbergen claimed his first Busch Light Pole position of the season Saturday afternoon at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez and will lead the field to green in the inaugural Viva Mexico 250 Sunday in Mexico City.

The scheduled 45-minute qualifying session was called off 17 minutes early due to light rain, but the 36-year-old former Australian Supercar Series champion was easily the class of the field — his pole-winning lap of 93.904 mph improving notably from his speed in Saturday afternoon’s two practice sessions.

Smiling and referring to road courses as his “natural habitat,” van Gisbergen was quite satisfied with his work in the No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet — especially considering the unknown of a first-time race at the venue.

“It was a great session for us, we kind of lacked in a lot of areas yesterday [in practice] with our car getting the balance we wanted and went through a lot of challenges last night — a couple I thought were maybe too much — and started my lap and the car felt magic right from the start,” van Gisbergen said.

The pole position and positive start of the weekend could prove especially important as van Gisbergen is ranked 33rd in the championship standings, essentially needing a race victory to earn a position in the 16-driver NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs field.

“Certainly, a win fixes our year, gets you locked in,” he said with a smile about the pole helping produce a victory Sunday.

“Win a race and it changes your year, and then we can race with less pressure, and just keep learning, keep being methodical, keep getting better every week and then we can try some stuff,” van Gisbergen continued. “We’re very sort of welded in a box in the moment, just not wanting to get out of our comfort zone.”

Another notable qualifying effort came from RFK Racing’s Ryan Preece, who will start second on the front row alongside van Gisbergen. Preece was the second fastest and ran only a single lap in the session.

Van Gisbergen’s Trackhouse teammate Ross Chastain was third fastest in the No. 1 Chevrolet, followed by Joe Gibbs Racing’s Ty Gibbs, who earned a front-row start in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race earlier in the day.

Qualifying Results