Shane van Gisbergen continues perfect run in Chicago with Xfinity Series win

CHICAGO — Shane van Gisbergen passed Jesse Love for the lead with three laps remaining and pulled away to win Saturday’s Xfinity Series race on the streets of Chicago.

Van Gisbergen has won the past two races at Chicago. He is the reigning winner of Sunday’s Cup race (4:30 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock).

Van Gisbergen’s victory on Saturday is his third consecutive win at the circuit, equaling the series record shared by AJ Allmendinger and Terry Labonte.

FURTHER: Xfinity Race Results

FURTHER: Xfinity Driver Points

Ty Gibbs finished second and Kyle Larson took third. Parker Kligerman came from the back of the pack early for an engine change and finished fourth. Love rounded out the top five.

Larson and van Gisbergen put on a thrilling show for much of the first half of the 50-lap race on the 12-turn, 2.2-mile course.

In the first 23 laps they exchanged the lead five times. At one point van Gisbergen gave a thumbs up to Larson behind him.

“I was having a blast,” Larson said afterward. “Obviously, I wanted to win, but I wanted to learn more than anything. I wanted to battle him because he’s so good at creating shapes and angles to pass. That was one of my goals. The first chance I got, I wanted to start racing because I just didn’t know if I’d get another chance to race him.”

Van Gisbergen said competing with Larson was “incredibly fun.”

“I had a great time,” he said.

Van Gisbergen said he was learning from Larson during the race: “Some of his techniques, lines and car positioning were very, very different to mine. I adapted a bit to him, especially in Turn 6, the way he was braking and turning was unbelievable, how he was making the car turn. I thought my car didn’t have enough front grip. Then when I adapted to what he was doing, my car sorted itself out. So I learned a lot as well.”

Stage 1 winner: Shane van Gisbergen

Stage 2 winner: Austin Hill

Who had a good career: Parker Kligerman’s fourth-place finish was his best finish of the season and his fifth top-10 in the past six races. … Connor Mosack finished sixth in his first Xfinity start of the season. … Joey Logano placed eighth. He was driving the No. 15 for AM Racing in place of Hailie Deegan. Logano gave the team its best finish of the year. … Austin Green placed 10th, giving him three top-10 finishes in his first four career Xfinity starts.

Who had a bad race: Chandler Smith, who came into the race second in points, finished last in the 38-car field after an engine failure. It was the third engine problem for Joe Gibbs Racing this weekend. The teams of John Hunter Nemechek and Sheldon Creed changed engines before Saturday’s race. Smith fell to third in points.

Next: The series will be contested on July 13 at Pocono Raceway (3:00 p.m. ET)