The 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs roared to life at Darlington Raceway with the gruelling 367-lap Southern 500, and while Chase Briscoe etched his name into history with a dominant victory.
Kiwi Shane van Gisbergen endured one of his toughest nights of the season, finishing 32nd after battling persistent handling problems and a strategy gamble that never paid off.
Van Gisbergen lined up 20th on the grid, 14th of the 16 playoff contenders, with only Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman starting behind him.
At the sharp end, pole-sitter Denny Hamlin led a playoff-heavy top 12 to the green flag alongside Briscoe, with Josh Berry and Tyler Reddick on row two.
The Kiwi made an early jump to 15th on the restart after a lap one caution triggered by Berry’s heavy contact with Reddick, but it wasn’t long before handling issues began to plague the No. 88 Trackhouse Chevrolet.
By lap 19, van Gisbergen had slipped back to his starting position of 20th and was already voicing concerns over his car’s balance.
Running a later pit cycle, van Gisbergen stayed out until lap 45 before coming in, only to rejoin a lap down in 31st.
“The tyres aren’t wearing as badly as I thought they would,” he noted, before adding his real concern: “The car’s just way too tight.”
The Trackhouse crew reminded him that conditions would change as night fell, but SVG’s mood worsened:
“This thing is terrible, man, honestly. It just won’t turn off Turn 2.”
Compounding the problem, a slow second pit stop dropped him a lap down again, though he earned the lucky dog pass at the end of Stage 1, where Briscoe took the stage win.
As the sun set, van Gisbergen’s pace never improved. He briefly climbed to 19th after pit stops under caution, but soon found himself stuck deep in the field again. Every change the team made seemed to do more harm than good.
“Feels like a completely different car from yesterday. This is embarrassing. I can’t turn, there’s no drive, it’s just not even close,” he lamented over the radio.
By the end of Stage 2, SVG was 29th, while Briscoe swept the opening two stages ahead of Reddick and Jones.
Desperate to salvage something, van Gisbergen and his crew rolled the dice with a one-stop strategy in the final stage.
For a brief moment, it looked promising. As others pitted, SVG cycled into the lead on lap 280, but his track position was short-lived, and the complete strategy gamble was yet to play out in its entirety.
Briscoe quickly reclaimed the top spot, and the Kiwi tumbled down the order before eventually stopping with 65 laps to go.
The gamble was undone completely when Derek Kraus’ car caught fire with 54 laps to go, triggering a caution at the worst possible time for SVG. Two laps down, he never recovered.
At the front, Briscoe was unstoppable. He led more than 300 laps, the first driver to do so at Darlington since Bobby Allison in 1971, and held off a late charge from Reddick to take back-to-back Southern 500 wins.
Van Gisbergen, meanwhile, crossed the line 32nd of the 35 cars still running, two laps down and deeply frustrated after a night where nothing went right.
The result sees the Kiwi tumble from 6th to 12th in the playoff standings, clinging to the final transfer spot by just three points.
With only two races left in the Round of 16, he faces a pressure-filled weekend ahead at World Wide Technology Raceway in Illinois.
Header Image: NASCAR
