SHANE van Gisbergen is set to be in the middle of a three-way fight to make the NASCAR Cup Series Chase after finishing 20th at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
SVG came into this weekend with a 50-point buffer over Ryan Preece; however, strong early strategy from the RFK Racing squad saw the Ford driver finish ninth, narrowing the gap to the three-time Supercars champion to only 31 points.
Austin Cindric, meanwhile, provisionally heads into the final regular season race at Daytona with a 13-point advantage over van Gisbergen following a 12th-place result in Loudon.
Bubba Wallace, who finished second, has a 75-point advantage over the cut line and is essentially locked in, joining Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney, Ty Gibbs, Tyler Reddick, Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe, Kyle Larson, Chase Elliot, Joey Logano, Chris Buescher, Carson Hocevar, William Byron and Daniel Suárez, who have confirmed post-season berths.
Brad Keselowski has a mathematical chance to skip SVG, but will need to be near perfect to bridge a 68-point disadvantage.
Each stage at Daytona will be worth 10 points for the winner, with 10th place awarded a single point; 55 will go to the ultimate race winner, 35 for second, down to one point for 36th, with a bonus point on the line for the fastest lap of the race.
Van Gisbergen had an up-and-down race, leading strongly early, when the race started on wet tyres with a slick track.
“It was a tough day for what we needed,” van Gisbergen noted post-race.
“Being that fast on wet weather tyres and falling that fast shows that we were missing something to have grip on the slick tyres.
“Hopefully there are some learnings on that because Connor (Zilisch) and I just went backwards as fast as we could when the track dried.
“It’s just a disappointing way to end the day.
“We would love to have more of a cushion heading into Daytona (International Speedway), but the #60 (Ryan Preece) did a great job today.
“I don’t think the #2 (Austin Cindric) gained much on us, but we would love to have more heading into a big unknown race next weekend.”
After a weather-induced start delay, polesitter Reddick spun on the first lap, blocking in Hamlin and Buescher, with van Gisbergen surviving a wild moment to land in second position.
On the lap 6 of 301 restart, SVG settled into second position, dropped to third, before charging into the race lead, passing Byron on lap 27.
The Kiwi sprinted to a 7sec advantage over the field when a competition caution fell on lap 41.
With wet verges, van Gisbergen jumped into the lead on the restart, which quickly reverted to a yellow when Ricky Stenhouse Jr crashed, as Ross Chastain’s challenge to make the Chase fell by the wayside when he retired with a mechanical drama.
In the run to the first stage break, van Gisbergen drifted back to ninth position, claiming two valuable points, as Larson led the field.
An extended pit stop saw SVG restart from 25th, and he did well to miss a melee that was started by a tangle between Connor Zilisch and Hocevar, who also spun on the parade lap.
After stopping on lap 132, van Gisbergen was able to climb to 15th at the lap 185 final stage break, just holding on to the lead lap ahead of the front-running Blaney.
The #97 held station in 15th when Hocevar spun yet again on lap 203.
The race was slowed again shortly afterwards, when contact from Michael McDowell sent Riley Herbst hard into the wall, who was subsequently collected by Zilisch.
Subsequently, Byron lost a wheel and spun, attracting another yellow flag.
From 15th at the restart, van Gisbergen drifted to 20th and a lap down at the chequered flag, with the race won by Blaney.
Next week, the final race of the NASCAR Cup Series regular season will be held on the high banks of Daytona International Speedway.
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