Shane Van Gisbergen Takes NASCAR Cup Pole at Mexico City Over Preece

HHP for Chevy Racing / Jim Fluharty

Shane van Gisbergen secured his second career NASCAR Cup Series pole position, and his first of his Rookie of the Year campaign, Saturday afternoon at Mexico City. The driver of the No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet narrowly defeated Ryan Preece by 0.064 seconds to take the top starting spot for Sunday's Viva Mexico 250.

STARTING LINEUP: NASCAR Cup Series Viva Mexico 250

Rain forced the end to the qualifying session approximately 17 minutes earlier than the session was scheduled to conclude, and at the time the rain came, van Gisbergen was the guy atop the speed charts.

"That's awesome," Van Gisbergen said after learning he had secured the pole position. "What a really cool achievement for us. Great starting spot for tomorrow. Yeah, I'm excited, that's really cool."

Van Gisbergen's pole-winning run came on the strength of a 92.776-second (93.904 mph) lap time around the 15-turn, 2.42-mile Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez road course in Mexico City. Van Gisbergen wasn't super pleased with the speed of his race car during Friday's practice session, but after crew chief Stephen Doran made some changes overnight, van Gisbergen had a very fast race car.

"We made some big swings last night, Safety Culture Chevy was a bit better. A lot more front grip, which is what I needed," Van Gisbergen explained. "But my laps were average. Like, you'll see, everybody is beating me on the first half of the lap, and then, my lap gets good at the end. I went for another lap, and was on a ripper and mucked it up. We had a lot of speed today, which is good. It's been a great improvement."

While Preece isn't on the majority of people's short list of expected contenders at road course events, the RFK Racing driver surprised by notching the runner-up starting spot for Sunday's race. However, Preece feels he actually could have had the pole position had he not slowed himself in the final few corners as he approached his teammate on track.

"It actually stings a little worse, because I told Chris [Buescher], I said, I was going to follow him out. And I caught him, so the final few corners, I didn't want to catch him to ruin our second lap, and I feel like I probably gave away the pole there," Preece stated. "But this Colgate/Kroger Ford Mustang is really solid. It's been good since practice. We put a lot of effort into this race, so, I'm excited about it."

Ross Chastain will lineup from the third position behind the front row comprised of SVG and Preece, and he'll be joined by Ty Gibbs, who finished third a weekend ago at Michigan International Speedway and has shown great speed all weekend long at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

Michael McDowell, the driver of the No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, will start from inside the top-five as he locked down the fifth starting spot for the race. McDowell, who won at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course in 2023, is regarded as a talented road racer and will be in a good position when the green flag flies on Sunday.

Kyle Larson, Todd Gilliland, AJ Allmendinger, Joey Logano, and Mexico native Daniel Suarez rounded out the top-10 qualifiers for Sunday's Viva Mexico 250.

Ryan Truex, who is driving the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota this weekend in place of Denny Hamlin after the birth of his third child on Wednesday, will start 36th in the 37-car field. Truex, who hasn't competed in a NASCAR Cup Series event since the 2014 season, was 1.848 seconds off the pace set by Van Gisbergen, who secured the pole.

Katherine Legge, who is making her second career NASCAR Cup Series start this weekend, was the lone driver, who clocked in slower than Truex in the session. Legge will start shotgun on the field in the 37th position.

Other notable qualifying performances include Kyle Busch (11th), Chase Elliott (12th), Chris Buescher (16th), William Byron (27th), and Christopher Bell (31st).