Shane van Gisbergen looks to tie history with sixth straight road win at COTA 

AUSTIN, Texas – Shane van Gisbergen knows that history is on the line this Sunday at Circuit of The Americas (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Van Gisbergen scorched the rest of the Cup Series field on road courses in 2025, earning 293 points (averaging 48.8 points per race), 73 markers more than the next closest competitor, Christopher Bell. He ended the season by winning the final five road-course races contested, beginning with the Cup Series' first visit south of the United States border at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City by a lofty 16.5 seconds. Should van Gisbergen put on another clinic on Sunday, he will tie Jeff Gordon for the longest winning streak on road courses in Cup Series history (1997-2000). Additionally, he'd tie Chase Elliott at seven road course wins, the most among active drivers. "It would be pretty cool," van Gisbergen said, pondering the idea of winning a sixth straight race. "Kevin Harvick, I did an interview with him the other day and he brought that up. It’s a very different time with a lot more races per year, but as a crew last year, we had an amazing year, and it would be awesome to carry that on into this year." MORE: COTA schedule | Full Cup Series schedule When van Gisbergen won in 2025, he did so in big fashion. Three of his triumphs last year had the largest margins of victory on a road course since 1996. In addition to the Mexico City rout, he won at Watkins Glen International by 11.1 seconds and again by 15.1 seconds at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval. The 2025 season marked the first campaign since 1966 to feature multiple road-course races with the margin of victory in each exceeding 15 seconds. In the six road-course attempts during his rookie season, van Gisbergen led 52% of the laps and ran inside the top five positions 85% of the time. Only 5% of his 579 laps completed while turning left and right were spent outside of the top 10, according to Racing Insights. The outlier was COTA, however. Through two Cup starts at the famed road course, van Gisbergen has yet to achieve his victory celebration of punting a rugby ball into the grandstands. He was also defeated in his lone O’Reilly Auto Parts Series start by Kyle Larson on the 20-turn layout in 2024, though he did have a showdown with Austin Hill in the final two laps. He was deemed to cut the course on the last lap and was credited with a 27th-place finish. "I like the place. I just haven’t managed to put a full race together," van Gisbergen said. "I think every race I’ve done here in the NASCAR series, I’ve been reasonably quick, but for one reason or another, I haven’t managed to get it done." During van Gisbergen’s 2024 Cup start with Kaulig Racing, he was caught speeding on pit road in Stage 2, dropping to 20th in the finishing order. In the first race of the shortened configuration last year, he led 23 laps before getting shuffled back into the pack, placing sixth at the checkered flag. It also marked just the third time Trackhouse Racing entered a third full-time entry into a race. "Last year, it was the third race again, so we were very new with Trackhouse," van Gisbergen said. "I made some mistakes and we weren’t really there yet as a team early in the year. Hopefully, that compounds and we’re a bit stronger this year." Making his 53rd career Cup start, van Gisbergen is aiming to become the quickest driver in the modern era to reach seven Cup Series victories.