Shane van Gisbergen got back in victory lane in the NASCAR Cup Series.
SVG got away on the final run, winning the Viva Mexico 250 on June 15 at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City by more than 16 seconds ahead of Christopher Bell.
It was van Gisbergen’s second career Cup win.
He is now locked into the playoffs (barring seven new winners in the final 10 regular-season races) despite largely struggling through his first full-time Cup Series season.
Here are the winners and losers from Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race in Mexico City, the first Cup points race outside the United States in more than six decades:
For any driver and race team on the playoff bubble, this scenario had to be a major factor in the playoff picture if not a calculated assumption. Van Gisbergen was going to be the driver to watch in every road course race in the regular season, with Sunday’s race in Mexico City the first of three in the next month.
He got the job done on June 15, almost certainly securing a playoff berth despite entering the day 33rd in points.
As I wrote in my pick of van Gisbergen to win earlier this week, he had a run of top-20 finishes the past month to provide some encouragement for how he is running in a car new to him on non-road course tracks.
It would be a major surprise to see him become a consistent contender on ovals the way he is on a road course, but the win in Mexico City solidified his presence in the playoff picture.
There will be some critics lambasting the playoff format, and that’s fair. But van Gisbergen’s value is crystal clear in an era where a win means a playoff berth and more money.
Bowman said earlier this weekend that he was still feeling some discomfort following last week’s hard crash at Michigan.
The driver of the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet entered the weekend with six finishes of 29th or worse in the prior eight races. Bowman was at risk of falling into a playoff bubble battle.
But the most underrated road course driver in the series worked his way into the top five by halfway through the race en route to a fourth-place finish.
We don’t always like to go with two drivers in the top-four finishers as the winners because sometimes that is too obvious, but Bowman needed a day and a result like this one.
It was a bad day for Kyle Busch to have a bad day.
On wet tires and in the rain, Busch locked up his brakes and missed Turn 10. He ran into Kyle Larson, Justin Haley and AJ Allmendinger in the process, ending his day in 37th.
Entering Sunday, Busch was tied with Ryan Preece for the final playoff spot. That is no longer the case coming out of Mexico City.
There are 10 regular-season races left, and Busch is at risk of missing the playoffs for the second straight season.
Gibbs had the second-best car through the first 65 laps and was probably the only peer to van Gisbergen through the first 150 miles of the race.
But the No. 54 Toyota got the bad end of a caution on Lap 65 via strategy. Van Gisbergen and Bell had already pitted and restarted at the front, while Gibbs restarted at 11th.
Gibbs got behind Chase Elliott and Ross Chastain during that restart and didn’t make any inroads into the top 10 the rest of the race after using up his tires.
In March and April, Gibbs probably would have been OK with an 11th-place finish. But one could argue that he had a top-3 car on Sunday, and he finished outside the top 10.
Meanwhile, Elliott — on the same pit cycle and starting alongside Gibbs on that final restart — drove to a third-place finish.
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