Chicago favorite Shane van Gisbergen eliminated after crash at Chase Briscoe

There will be no NASCAR rehearsal for Shane van Gisbergen on the rainy streets of Chicago.

A year after winning the first street race in the Cup Series’ 76-year history, van Gisbergen finished last Sunday after being caught in a crash by Chase Briscoe on lap 25 of 75.

As conditions became increasingly dangerous on the 12-turn, 2.2-mile layout due to rain, Briscoe lost control of his No. 14 Ford entering Turn 6 and collided with the No. 16 Chevrolet of van Gisbergen, whose car hit the wall and was unable to continue.

“I just turned around, I looked pretty good and then somebody ran me over,” van Gisbergen told NBC Sports’ Kim Coon. “It’s disgusting.”

Starting fifth, van Gisbergen won the first stage after taking the lead on lap 12 by overtaking Ty Gibbs. He was demoted to fifth after a pit stop and crashed on the restart.

“We were leading for a good part of the race and I felt good taking off in the rain,” said van Gisbergen, who later saw the replay of the incident. “Oh yeah. Yeah, well done. So it’s a shame. But it’s an unfortunate mistake by (Briscoe). I’m sure he didn’t mean to do it, but yeah, when he hit me I had no business doing it.”

After winning the Xfinity race on Saturday (his third straight road course victory this season), van Gisbergen was looking to make a splash in Chicago.

Shane van Gisbergen equals series record with third consecutive road course win.

“Of course I’m disappointed,” said the three-time Supercars champion. “We had a really amazing Camaro and Kaulig Racing, Trackhouse, gave us a great car and we were able to lead. I felt like I was driving well. So yeah, it’s a shame to be out so early and a shame we couldn’t fight at the end.”

The pre-race favorite said Gibbs, Christopher Bell and Kyle Larson had the best cars.

“Those guys all ran well,” van Gisbergen said. “We had some really cool battles with them (that were) respectful and really fair. So I think any of the top three is the favorite.”

It was the second year in a row that rain had an impact on the race. Last year, thunderstorms delayed the start by a few hours, but the race finished dry. This year, several cars started on wet tyres as showers began just before the green flag, but van Gisbergen opted to stay on slicks.

“It was good,” he said. “On slicks it was a bit risky and I hated being the leader. And whoever was the leader, you could see them slowing down, you didn’t know what the conditions were going to be. So as soon as I got to the front, you didn’t know what was going to happen and you had to take it a bit slow. But until then, I had a lot of fun.”