Everything to know for Sunday’s Grant Park 165 at the Chicago Street Course, host of the 19th race of the 2025 Cup Series season.
Track: Chicago Street Course
Location: Chicago
Track length: 2.2 miles
When: Sunday, 2 p.m. ET
Where to tune in: TNT Sports/truTV, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Race purse: $11,704,450
Race distance: 75 laps | 165 miles
Stages: 20 | 45 | 75
Defending winner: Alex Bowman, July 2024
Starting lineup: Shane van Gisbergen seals Busch Light Pole
RELATED: How to watch on TNT Sports, truTV | Watch NASCAR video highlights
Street-savvy Shane van Gisbergen still the Chicago benchmark
“I’m a lucky boy,” Shane van Gisbergen beamed Saturday afternoon after claiming two NASCAR national-series pole positions in the span of about three hours on the Chicago Street Course. The darling of the Windy City was referencing his good fortune at having top-notch equipment for the weekend doubleheader, but luck may have very little to do with his show of speed.
Plenty of headlines have been scratched out in the days leading up to Sunday’s Grant Park 165, touting, “Can anyone beat SVG?” Trackhouse Racing teammate Ross Chastain says it’s a fair question.
“Very fair. Good luck,” Chastain said with a laugh, this after qualifying 22nd — 1.549 seconds off van Gisbergen’s fast time. “I mean, I just want to be second. Yeah, I just wanted to be within, like, my goal today was … try to go as fast as him, but realistically, I wanted to be within like a second, and I wasn’t. I thought once I got here, I thought I could get it to like half a second after all of our prep, and just not the case. So yeah, it’s just incredible. We have identical cars. He’s that good.”
Recent results and another powerful qualifying effort suggest that SVG could be celebrating with another rugby-ball kick into the Chicago bleachers come Sunday afternoon. The inaugural Chicago Street winner has momentum after prevailing three weeks ago in Mexico City, where he dusted the field by a whopping 16½ seconds to lock up his first-ever berth in the Cup Series Playoffs. He tacked on a triumph from the pole in Saturday’s Xfinity Series matinee.
RELATED: Cup standings | Full 2025 schedule
Chase Briscoe could only shake his head after briefly snaring the provisional pole, only to have van Gisbergen knock him off by 0.617 seconds. Briscoe has more poles (four) than any Cup Series driver this season but was fifth-fastest in Saturday’s session.
Despite all the recent headway, SVG hasn’t been infallible when NASCAR goes to road-racing circuits. Van Gisbergen started and finished sixth at Circuit of The Americas in March when a two-horse race went to Christopher Bell over a fading Kyle Busch. Just last September, Chris Buescher pounced on a final-lap mistake to top SVG head-to-head at Watkins Glen, and the RFK Racing veteran holds a Next Gen-best average finish of 8.79 on road courses.
Even still, van Gisbergen remains the standard that the field is aiming to reach.
“I’ve been able to hang around with him at the Legends Car track, right, and it’s been fun to see just how his brain operates and what he looks forward to on ovals versus road courses,” said Bubba Wallace, referencing Charlotte Motor Speedway’s Summer Shootout Series. “But yeah, I mean, he’s the benchmark. He’s on top of the Xfinity board right now for a reason, because he’s pretty damn good. Yeah, he gets humbled when we go back to ovals, though.”
Several drivers were humbled by Chicago’s tight confines during Saturday’s practice and qualifying, putting a fair share of big names deep in the 40-car field for Sunday’s green flag. Wallace was among those after an adventure-filled session that left his No. 23 Toyota 37th on the grid. Behind him are Hendrick Motorsports teammates William Byron (38th) and Chase Elliott (39th) — ranked first and second respectively in Cup Series points — after separate contact in practice kept them from making qualifying attempts. Denny Hamlin is set to start last after the engine on his No. 11 Toyota expired just minutes after practice began. Hendrick will make a clean sweep of cars at the back of the pack after the No. 48 team of Alex Bowman and the No. 5 team of Kyle Larson opted to make repairs — both unapproved adjustments that will force them to the rear during pace laps.
MORE: 2025 NASCAR In-Season Challenge hub | Inside the tracks of In-Season Challenge
A scarcity of extensive runoff area on the temporary course took its toll in Saturday’s preliminaries. A lack of grip didn’t help.
“The track’s very treacherous. It’s slick,” said Brad Keselowski, who starts 15th Sunday. “There were a lot of areas that had new pavement last year that have had a summer and a winter, and that had an effect. For whatever reason, the tires didn‘t take to the track like I felt it would. It‘s supposed to be a softer tire and it‘s been very, very slick.”
MORE: Full Saturday recap
From atop the pit box …
What do crew chiefs have in focus to win Sunday’s race?
Race tracks age. The complexion of each racing surface on the circuit changes year over year, with climate and use altering its character. Both of those factors reach extremes with the Chicago Street Course.
The wear and tear of traffic coursing through the third-largest city in the country has accelerated the rough nature of the 2.2-mile layout, where Cup Series teams will compete in Sunday’s Grant Park 165. Combine that with the harsh Midwest winters commonplace here, and it’s another wrinkle to conquer on the already snug circuit.
“I think the biggest thing from a setup standpoint is just the content of the track, right?” said Richard Boswell, crew chief for Austin Dillon’s No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. “The track surface itself is roads that big dump trucks are driving on every day, and from a content standpoint, there’s just so much more, so it requires you to set your car up a little more compliant so that the driver is not all over the limiters and rub blocks. So from that standpoint, I would say that’s the biggest difference. These are just everyday roads that are not in the greatest of shape, not in the same shape that the tracks we typically race on are, for sure, and then on the other side of that, there’s zero forgiveness on track. Like there’s barriers around you on both sides, there’s very few runoffs, so just everything has to be a bit more precise.”
NASCAR competition officials have tried to mitigate the rough nature of the circuit with patches where the streets are at their bumpiest, repairing the concrete in an area between Turns 5 and 6. Teams have also found new pavement in Turn 11, the result of city maintenance between last year and now.
The changes made Friday’s pre-race track walk a well-attended affair, with drivers and crews being extra observant.
“Most of that just comes with the street config, and what’s happened to the pavement over the year,” said Blake Harris, crew chief for the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevy and defending race winner Alex Bowman. “Like, this is where 18-wheelers run up and down the road every day. … So I think they’ve done a little bit of repaving in some sections, so how will that affect the handling of car? I think from the car perspective, that’s the biggest thing.”
The other major factor has been a variable weather forecast, which has wavered with the area’s precipitation chances each day leading up to Sunday. Teams have had to bolt on wet-weather Goodyear tires in each of the previous two runnings of the Chicago Street Race, and both editions have been shortened by rain delays and darkness.
Trying to game-plan around those uncertainties has made calling an effective race strategy more complex.
“We haven’t had a race go the distance yet, right? So it’s definitely been unique the first two years, and I think that uniqueness has come from being rain-shortened or time-shortened,” Boswell said. “So I think it’s hard to sit there and look at any certain strategy and say, ‘hey, that’s the one,’ simply because we haven’t run a full event yet. And quite frankly, it looks like on Sunday, we could have another similar situation. So from that standpoint, I think it is very similar to any other road course. Track position is going to be king. Anything you can do to get the track position, even if you don’t have a P1 car, just having P1 position is probably worth 15 spots. So trying to get track position and keep it is the No. 1 priority, and then I think you just kind of have to be fluid.”
Harris echoed that sentiment, noting how wildly the forecast has fluctuated this week.
“I’m banking on right now the set of decisions that come along with that,” Harris said. “You look back on the stuff that you think made your car good in the wet. OK, how much do you keep it like that versus a complete dry race? But I believe we went into last year Sunday, the day before, not thinking it was going to rain, and it rained. So I just assume every time we come here, it’s going to rain at some point. So we’ll be looking at those rain tires and the rain setups and all those strategies. I think right now, we’ve probably got seven different strategies in play for Sunday right now, and it just kind of depends on what Mother Nature does to us.”
RELATED: See where drivers will pit for Sunday’s race
History tells us …
If he’s not first, he’s last. The Windy City streets are the site of Shane van Gisbergen’s tied-for-best finish in the Cup Series and his worst. SVG burst onto the stock-car scene with a career-altering victory in his Cup debut in 2023 in the inaugural Chicago Street Race. He returned the next year as a heavy favorite but ended up as the event’s first retiree in 40th place after jolting a barrier in a ricochet wreck with Chase Briscoe in wet-weather conditions.
He may not be the favorite to win, but watch out for …
MICHAEL McDOWELL. The stature of SVG heading into Sunday’s event has dwarfed the odds of several strong road-course racers, and McDowell is among the best of that bunch. The Spire Motorsports driver has placed seventh and fifth in his two previous Chicago Street efforts, starting from the first three rows in both of those instances. He was also fifth in the Cup Series’ most recent road-course go, the inaugural visit to Mexico City, and he will start second Sunday.
Fantasy update
NASCAR Fantasy Live expert Dustin Albino provides insight for your Sunday lineup.
Treacherous is the word of the weekend on the streets of Chicago, with the margin of error being slim due to a lack of grip. The quartet of Hendrick Motorsports teammates, including two who were in my original lineup, found out the hard way during practice and qualifying and will have to start at the rear of the field. A lot can happen over 165 miles, but track position is crucial. I‘ve dropped both Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman in favor of Tyler Reddick and road-course menace Chris Buescher. Kyle Busch is another driver worth considering for your lineup, as the No. 8 Chevrolet qualified a season-best sixth at a road course.
Lineup: Shane van Gisbergen, Michael McDowell, Ty Gibbs, Tyler Reddick, Chris Buescher.
Garage: Christopher Bell.
MORE: Lineup advice in Fantasy Fastlane
Speed reads
Our biggest pieces of the week — get covered for race day from all angles.
• NASCAR at Chicago: Key info, practice reports and more from doubleheader weekend | Read more
• In-Season Challenge: Your hub for everything related to the 32-driver showdown | Read more
• Racing Insights: Where your favorite driver is projected to finish Sunday | Read more
• Field of 16: Bowman, Gibbs aiming for a postseason plus in Chicago | Read more
• Turning Point to Chicago: Picking up bracket pieces post-Atlanta | Read more
• At-track photos: Scenes, sights from the Chicago streets | View gallery
• NASCAR Classics: Rewind with full race replays from Chicago Street, Chicagoland Speedway
• Paint Scheme Preview: Windy City designs ready to rip through Chicago | View gallery
• Power Rankings: Post-Atlanta pecking order, including a new No. 1 | This week’s Top 20
