Shane van Gisbergen Scores First COTA Win

Shane van Gisbergen celebrates his win in Saturday’s Focused Health 250 at Circuit of the Americas (COTA). (Photo: Nigel Kinrade | Nigel Kinrade Photography)

DEL VALLE, Texas — In his first NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts race of the season, Shane van Gisbergen returned to Victory Lane, winning the Focused Health 250 at Circuit of the Americas.

The victory is the first victory at COTA for van Gisbergen in his fourth career national series start at the 2.4-mile road course. It was also the fifth career NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series victory for SVG.

“I’ve always been fast here but never managed to win,” said van Gisbergen. “So I’m pretty stoked to finally get it done. Pretty flawless day.”

After a late race caution, the final restart of the race took place with just five laps remaining, and van Gisbergen was lined up in the sixth position. Going into Turn 1, the door opened for him to take the lead, as Sam Mayer got inside positioning on the leaders, but ran the corner wide, allowing for SVG to take the lead and win the race.

I wondered what was going to happen on that last restart,” he said. “I kind of sucked the (No.) 41 (Mayer) in, and he took everyone out for me. So, that was cool.”

The victory also extended JR Motorsports’ dominant streak on the road courses with a 10th consecutive trip to Victory Lane.

Meanwhile, on the NASCAR Cup Series side of the garage, SVG is looking to extend his personal road course winning streak to six on Sunday afternoon. Rolling off from the 13th position, he hopes a few things picked up during Saturday’s race will translate to a victory on Sunday.

Shane van Gisbergen put his road course mastery on display in Saturday’s Focused Health 250 at COTA. (Photo: Danny Hansen | Nigel Kinrade Photography)

“I did learn a bit,” said van Gisbergen. “I tried some things. I wasn’t driving very well earlier today, and we lack in the car, but I can also be better, too. So hopefully it’s worthwhile doing these races, and it helps tomorrow.”

Austin Hill scored a second-place finish, Sammy Smith finished in third, Jesse Love came home fourth and Corey Day rounded out the top five.

Day, who has already created controversy during the first two races of the season, added another driver to the list of competitors not thrilled with the driving of the No. 17 car.

With under three laps to go, Day was passed by Connor Zilisch, who had rebounded from a broken left-rear brake rotor. After Zilisch completed the pass, Day got into Zilisch, sending him spinning into the wall.

“Same guy who does this every week,” said Zilisch. “So hopefully he can figure it out. All I want is an apology, but the guy just stands over there and stares at me. It just makes it worse.”

During his post-race interview on The CW, Day initially said the incident was caused by the loss of front turn in the car after Zilisch completed the pass, but took responsibility in the follow-up question.

“I got no problem going over there and talking to him (Zilisch),” Day said. “It was my mistake whether I had a broken race car or not. I’ll own up to it. I’ll go apologize, no problem.”

Finishing in sixth place in his series debut was 17-year-old Brent Crews, who became the first driver in the NOAPS under the age of 18 to lead laps since Casey Atwood in 1998.

“Today was a blast,” said Crews. “It was everything I’ve dreamed of for going on 10 years now. Today was a lot of fun getting to race around my friends and people I’ve thought about racing for a lot of years.”

Rounding out the top 10 were William Sawalich, Justin Allgaier, Ross Chastain and Brennan Poole.

The NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series returns to action next Saturday, March 7, at Phoenix Raceway for the GOVX 200 at 7:30 p.m. EST on The CW, MRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

Stage 1 Top 10 Results

1. Austin Hill
2. Sam Mayer
3. Justin Allgaier
4. Brandon Jones
5. Jesse Love
6. Carson Kvapil
7. Corey Day
8. Austin Green
9. Rajah Caruth
10. Shane van Gisbergen

Stage 2 Top 10 Results

1. Sam Mayer
2. Justin Allgaier
3. Carson Kvapil
4. Jesse Love
5. Shane van Gisbergen
6. Austin Hill
7. Sammy Smith
8. Brandon Jones
9. Ross Chastain
10. Ryan Sieg

Shane van Gisbergen is simply unstoppable at road courses like COTA. (Photo: Rusty Jones | Nigel Kinrade Photography)

Focused Health 250 at Circuit of the Americas Finishing Results