Shane van Gisbergen’s crew chief reveals his Chicago race-winning strategy that turned out to be a ‘bigger advantage’ than expected

Shane van Gisbergen’s crew chief, Stephen Doran, has broken down the tactical pit strategy that led to the driver's Cup Series win at the 2025 Grant Park 165 in Chicago. The strategy, described in a post by SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on X, focused on a flexible two-plan approach that ended up giving him a greater edge than expected, a tire advantage that ultimately helped seal the win for van Gisbergen.

The post was uploaded by SiriusXM NASCAR on their official X handle, featuring Doran’s comments on his approach during the race. In the clip, Doran detailed how he had a dual-plan strategy heading into the race. It was captioned:

“🗒️ "I kind of had a Plan A and a Plan B."🏆 @TeamTrackhouse Crew Chief Stephen Doran shared his strategy that got @shanevg97 another @NASCARChicago win.”

Plan A was a straightforward one-stop strategy. However, Doran observed that more drivers pitted early to short Stage 1 than he had anticipated. He then switched to Plan B, shorting Stage 1 only if Shane van Gisbergen could restart inside the top 10 for Stage 2. This decision hinged on timing and track position, which he carefully calculated after watching other teams’ pit calls.

As Doran explained, they chose to pit a lap later than most during Stage 1, except car No. 71. That allowed Shane van Gisbergen to maintain a solid restart position around the top 10. Knowing that the No. 71 car would stay out helped confirm the decision. This move gave van Gisbergen better tires and more fuel heading into the rest of the race, a choice that ended up paying off bigger than expected.

“We shorted stage 1 and there was a fairly big tire advantage, bigger than I thought it would be. Chicago because it's been rain, track drying like we've never had a full dry race to see how much of an advantage new tires are,” Doran said.

The impact of the strategy became evident once Stage 2 began. Despite slipping to 12th after a stage-end pit stop, van Gisbergen climbed back to the front. The tire advantage proved to be more powerful than expected due to the conditions on the Chicago street course, specifically, the lack of previous fully dry races, which made it hard to predict tire fall-off. Doran acknowledged that they didn’t realize how big the edge would be until it played out on track. As he described the situation:

“And yet it played out good.”

Shane van Gisbergen eventually passed Chase Briscoe with 16 laps to go and led the remaining laps after a final restart with nine laps left. He held off Ty Gibbs and Tyler Reddick to take his second Cup Series win of the season and his second at the Chicago Street Course, making him the first repeat winner at the venue and giving Chevrolet its eighth win of the 2025 season.

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Shane van Gisbergen calls for smarter safety tech after horrifying Chicago crash

Shane van Gisbergen, winner of the Chicago Cup race, shifted focus to a safety concern following Cody Ware’s high-speed crash during the event. Speaking after the race, van Gisbergen discussed NASCAR’s delayed response to the incident and suggested that better crash detection systems could help avoid such lapses in the future.

During the race, Cody Ware slammed into a tire barrier at nearly 93 mph after a brake rotor failure sent his car straight off in Turn 6. The severity of the crash was immediately apparent to fans and commentators, but NASCAR officials waited 35 seconds before throwing the caution flag. The delay prevented the race from entering overtime and sparked concerns about officiating and driver safety. Speaking to NASCAR reporter Claire B. Lang, Shane van Gisbergen offered a direct critique.

"I don't think they saw the severity of the crash, or thought he could drive out," van Gisbergen said.

He went on to explain how similar situations are handled differently in Supercars, adding:

"I'm pretty sure in V8 supercars, when I left, the cars had like a G-sensor, or if you had a crash that was big enough, it would trigger that G-sensor to, you know, medical and probably race control."

Shane Van Gisbergen stressed the need for NASCAR to consider adopting such systems. He described the footage of Ware’s wreck as "sickening" and said it was obvious that immediate medical response was necessary.

"If the crash is big enough, you need someone to... obviously looking at that fan version of the car passing by, it's sickening to watch that," he added. "So yeah, I guess there needs to be something to be improved, but I feel like NASCAR in general is fast moving with that stuff, so I'm sure it'll be better."

NASCAR officials later admitted that they did not have a live feed of the impact when it occurred. They acknowledged that if the crash had been seen in real-time, the caution would have been issued immediately.