{"id":1082,"date":"2025-07-16T21:53:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T21:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/1082\/"},"modified":"2025-07-16T21:53:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T21:53:08","slug":"the-red-bull-driver-with-more-2025-wins-than-max-verstappen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/1082\/","title":{"rendered":"The Red Bull driver with more 2025 wins than Max Verstappen"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the past four years, Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen has seemed inevitable in the world of Formula 1 \u2014 but as the team struggles in 2025, a new Red Bull-sponsored driver has stepped into the ring: Shane van Gisbergen.<\/p>\n

This year represents van Gisbergen\u2019s first full-time season in the NASCAR Cup Series over in the United States, and he\u2019s stunned the field by snagging three wins in the past five weeks.<\/p>\n

Shane van Gisbergen becomes Red Bull\u2019s latest dominant winner<\/p>\n

Hailing from Auckland, New Zealand, Shane van Gisbergen has joined the list of NASCAR\u2019s winningest drivers in the 2025 Cup Series season by snagging his third victory in five weeks.<\/p>\n

The three-time Australian Supercars champion got his first taste of NASCAR back in 2023, when he made a one-off debut at the Chicago street circuit \u2014 the first street course in the sport\u2019s history. Van Gisbergen dominated, leaving the stock car field in awe of a talent that they\u2019d yet to master.<\/p>\n

The following year, he made the move to the United States to contest a full season of NASCAR Xfinity Series races, along with a handful of Cup events, all with his Red Bull athlete sponsorship. In 2025, he made the leap to Cup to compete full-time in the No. 88 Trackhouse Racing machine.<\/p>\n

Though he\u2019s still struggled to find his footing on ovals, van Gisbergen has nevertheless become Red Bull\u2019s most dominant driver of the summer thanks to Cup\u2019s recent road course sweep.<\/p>\n

More on the intersection of Formula 1 and NASCAR:<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0NASCAR superstar savages F1 \u2013 but still wants a drive<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49 Could a NASCAR Hall of Famer really win an F1 race?<\/a><\/p>\n

From victory at the Cup Series\u2019 Mexico City debut \u2014 which van Gisbergen won with a little advice from none other than Max Verstappen \u2014 to absolute dominance at Chicago\u2019s street circuit to last weekend\u2019s stunning show at Sonoma Raceway, the Kiwi driver is clearly on a roll.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a stark contrast to Verstappen\u2019s 2025 season. After several years of dominance, the reigning F1 champion has only managed to net two victories on the year: One in Japan, and one in Imola. The immensely challenging RB21 has left the Dutch driver on the back foot, trying to claw back an ever-growing gap between himself and McLaren drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris in the championship standings.<\/p>\n

Yet just as Verstappen\u2019s title bids often came with controversy \u2014 from the 2021 title decider to Red Bull\u2019s cost cap breaches \u2014 so too has van Gisbergen\u2019s dominance been roundly criticized by a segment of fans and pundits in the NASCAR space.<\/p>\n

The Cup Series is traditionally an oval-centered sport with one or two road courses to flesh out the schedule, but the 2025 season sees the 36-race schedule fleshed out with six road or street courses: Circuit of The Americas, Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, Chicago street circuit, Sonoma Raceway, Watkins Glen, and Charlotte Motor Speedway\u2019s infield ROVAL.<\/p>\n

To determine its championship, NASCAR utilizes a playoff-style format. Sixteen drivers will qualify for the title, and every few races, four drivers will be eliminated until four remain to battle for the title at the season finale in Phoenix. To qualify for the playoffs, all a driver needs to do is win a race \u2014 and van Gisbergen has won three, putting him on equal ground with Christopher Bell, Denny Hamlin, and Kyle Larson.<\/p>\n

But many naysayers are currently arguing that van Gisbergen\u2019s wins are somehow different; if he can \u201conly\u201d win on road courses, then he shouldn\u2019t be able to qualify for the title of what is an oval-heavy championship.<\/p>\n

That said, van Gisbergen has been able to do the one thing many drivers have struggled with this year: Win. And with only one road course during the playoffs, the Kiwi driver will nevertheless have an uphill \u2014 and decidedly oval-shaped \u2014 battle ahead of him.<\/p>\n

Read next:\u00a0\u2018Like riding a buffalo\u2019 \u2013 The chaotic story behind Lella Lombardi\u2019s NASCAR debut<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the past four years, Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen has seemed inevitable in the world of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,1613,634,44,82],"class_list":["post-1082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-home-page","tag-nascar","tag-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}