{"id":59298,"date":"2026-06-20T20:04:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T01:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=59298"},"modified":"2026-06-21T18:08:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T23:08:35","slug":"van-gisbergen-captures-pole-for-historic-naval-base-coronado-street-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/20\/van-gisbergen-captures-pole-for-historic-naval-base-coronado-street-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Van Gisbergen captures pole for historic Naval Base Coronado street race"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Holly Cain,NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

SAN DIEGO – Although Shane van Gisbergen has strongly maintained the NASCAR Cup Series first-ever visit to the Naval Base Coronado Street Course presents a challenge for him and the field, the series\u2019 reigning road course best-in-show once again proved himself up for the challenge.<\/p>\n

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SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 20: Shane Van Gisbergen, driver of the #97 Red Bull Chevrolet, poses for photos after winning the pole award during qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series Anduril 250 at Naval Base Coronado on June 20, 2026 in San Diego, California. (Photo by James Gilbert\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

The Trackhouse Racing driver van Gisbergen, 37, won pole position for Sunday\u2019s Inaugural Anduril 250 (4 p.m. ET, Amazon Prime, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) with a lap of 90.809 mph around the 3.4-mile, 16-turn circuit on the scenic Naval Base in Coronado on Saturday. It\u2019s the sixth career NASCAR Cup Series pole position for the driver of the No. 97 Trackhouse Chevrolet on the sixth different road course.<\/p>\n

The New Zealander has won the last four races from that lead starting position.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmazing to get the first pole here (at San Diego),\u2019\u2019 Van Gisbergen said. \u201cReally cool. It’s tough, I’ve said it a couple of times. It’s your firstlap of the day and there’s three, four, five corners you’re probably going through for the first time of the day as your qualifying lap starts. And yeah, I made a meal of it, but I guess the rest of the lap was pretty decent and made the time back.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy long runs weren’t that great yesterday,\u2019\u2019 he added, \u201cThe Nos. 5 [Kyle Larson], 33 [Austin Hill] and 54 [Ty Gibbs] were faster than me yesterday, I believe. But my car is better today than yesterday, so who knows. We’re definitely in a good place to start and tomorrow will be a bit of a gamble and a lottery, I think, with the tires. It’s going to be hard for the crew chiefs and strategists to get it right tomorrow, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spire Motorsports\u2019 Carson Hocevar will start his No. 77 Chevrolet alongside Van Gisbergen on the front row \u2013 the best road course qualifying effort in the 23-year-old\u2019s young NASCAR Cup Series career \u2013 and it gives Chevy its third front row grid sweep of the season.<\/p>\n

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SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 20: Connor Zilisch, driver of the #88 Red Bull Chevrolet, drives during qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series Anduril 250 at Naval Base Coronado on June 20, 2026 in San Diego, California. (Photo by James Gilbert\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Team Penske\u2019s Ryan Blaney and fellow Ford driver, Front Row Motorsports\u2019 Zane Smith will start from the second row with Smith\u2019s teammate Todd Gilliland and Hocevar\u2019s Spire Motorsports teammate Daniel Suarez starting together from row three. Roush Fenway Racing\u2019s Ryan Preece, and Van Gisbergen\u2019s Trackhouse teammate Connor Zilisch will start seventh and eighth.<\/p>\n

The last seven road course races have been won from the front row and 22 of the 28 Next Gen-era road course events have been won from the top-eight positions on the grid.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a promising start for the 2024 series champion Blaney, who has not claimed a top-five road course finish in the Next Gen car era.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve said it before, I\u2019m an average road racer, I don\u2019t think I excel at this stuff very often but I work hard to get better and I thought we had an okay day yesterday [in practice],\u2019\u2019 Blaney said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHad a good lap. Didn\u2019t know I had it until that final chicane, but good overall effort and felt really good after the 12 boys worked on it overnight. I\u2019m looking forward to tomorrow. It\u2019s going to be a heckuva race. Tire degradation is going to be massive so going to be who can manage rears [tires] better. Just a cool event, cool to be out here.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou plan as much as you can but sometimes you\u2019re going to have to audible in the race and understand where you\u2019re at and what you want to do and then see what the tire wear is like tomorrow,\u2019\u2019 a smiling Blaney said. \u201cThat\u2019s the fun part about these new things. This whole weekend has been super cool to be here on the base. I appreciate them having us. The fans have been amazing the whole weekend and it should be a great day tomorrow for sure.<\/p>\n

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SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 20: Kyle Larson, driver of the #5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet, drives during qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series Anduril 250 at Naval Base Coronado on June 20, 2026 in San Diego, California. (Photo by David Jensen\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cAs far as racing goes, I don\u2019t know. Manage rear tires and don\u2019t hit any concrete. I hope I can do those two things and we might have a shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

NASCAR Cup Series championship leader Tyler Reddick, spun and brushed the wall on his second qualifying lap, but the driver of the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota was 17th fastest on his opening run around the course. Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin – who comes to the weekend on a three-race winning streak and trails Reddick by only 19 points in the championship standings \u2013 will roll off 25th in the No. 11 JGR Toyota.<\/p>\n

His teammate, Christopher Bell, who is nursing a broken wrist from an accident at Michigan two weeks ago, qualified 37th.  He said this weekend, it will be a game-time decision whether he starts the race and then hands the car over to Brent Crews to finish the race. Crews has been fast at San Diego, claiming the pole position for Saturday\u2019s NASCAR O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Series race on a lap faster than Van Gisbergen\u2019s pole-winning speed.<\/p>\n

Hendrick Motorsports owns the best road course record \u2013 leading the series in poles, wins, top-five and top-10 finishes in the last 15 road course races, however the best qualifying driver Saturday was reigning series champion Kyle Larson, who will roll off 14th on the 39-car grid.<\/p>\n

Trackhouse Racing\u2019s Project 91 driver, former Formula One racer Kevin Magnussen qualified 21st in his NASCAR debut driving the No. 91 Chevy. Seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson, who is competing in his hometown, will start 37th in the No. 84 Legacy Motor Club Toyota.<\/p>\n

Interview: Shane Van Gisbergen, Busch Light Pole Award Winner – <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

By Holly Cain,NASCAR Wire Service SAN DIEGO – Although Shane van Gisbergen has strongly maintained the NASCAR Cup Series first-ever visit to the Naval Base Coronado Street Course presents a challenge for him and the field, the series\u2019 reigning road course best-in-show once again proved himself up for the challenge. The Trackhouse Racing driver van […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":59318,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[16,1178,1112,941],"class_list":["post-59298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-nascar","tag-naval-base-coronado","tag-san-diego","tag-shane-van-gisbergen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GettyImages-2282539181-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-fqq","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59298"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59322,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59298\/revisions\/59322"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}