2025 Grant Park 165 Race Picks
Date/Time: Sunday July 6th, 2025. 2:00PM (EST)
Where: Chicago Street Course
TV: TNT
On Sunday, NASCAR’s Cup Series will return to the streets of downtown Chicago for the running of the Grant Park 165. Once considered a virtual concept, the Chicago Street Course was brought to life during the 2023 season. The inaugural race was highlighted by New Zealand driver Shane Van Gisbergen who shocked the racing world by winning the Grant Park 165 in his first career start. Since that victory, SVG has become the biggest road course talent in NASCAR which was solidified by his dominant, playoff clinching win 3 weeks ago in Mexico City. On Sunday, SVG will be the guy that everyone is chasing when he leads the field to the green flag for the Grant Park 165!
SVG won the pole on Saturday with a fast lap of 88.338mph which constituted a lap time of 1 minute and 29 seconds. SVG was the only driver to post a lap under 1 minute and 30 seconds and was a full ½ second faster than 2nd place qualifier Michael McDowell. The pole was SVG’s 3rd of his career and 2nd this season. SVG won the pole 3 weeks ago at Mexico City and went on to dominate the Cup Series’ inaugural event south of the border. Needless to say all of those factors combined with SVG’s immense talent in these road/street course style events has skyrocketed expectations for the New Zealander.
With those things stated, there are still 75 laps of racing that will be needed to decide things on Sunday. Last year, Alex Bowman proved that upsets can strike on the Chicago Street Course. Bowman helped us cash as a 25-1 underdog after the #48 team optimized pit strategy due to the fact NASCAR was forced to shorten the length of the race due to rain and red flags. The battle on pit road has consistently proven to be one of the most important battles in these road course events and rest assured everyone will be attempting to optimize their pit strategy based on how the race unfolds. As a result, we must approach Sunday’s Grant Park 165 with sharpness related to the top road course talents and also consider any potential dark horses that could put themselves in position for another possible upset!
Chicago Street Course – Cup Series Notes
- Shane Van Gisbergen (2023) and Alex Bowman (2024) are the only former winners at the Chicago Street Course.
- Michael McDowell, Ty Gibbs, and Kyle Busch are the only drivers to finish in the Top 10 in both races at the Chicago Street Course.
- Michael McDowell has posted finishes of 7th and 5th in two starts at the Chicago Street Course.
- Ty Gibbs has posted finishes of 9th and 3rd in two starts at the Chicago Street Course.
- Kyle Busch has posted finishes of 5th and 9th in two starts at the Chicago Street Course.
- Ty Gibbs (112.0), Shane Van Gisbergen (110.8), Tyler Reddick (104.5), Christopher Bell (102.5), and Kyle Larson (101.4) are the only drivers with +100 average driver ratings in two races at the Chicago Street Course.
- Chris Buescher has the best average finishing position (8.8) among all Cup Series drivers on road courses in the Next Gen Car.
- Shane Van Gisbergen has the highest average driver rating (111.3) among all Cup Series drivers on road courses in the Next Gen Car.
- Behind SVG, Tyler Reddick is the only driver with a triple digit (101.2) average driver rating on road courses in the Next Gen Car. *Reddick has also led the most laps (206) on road courses in the Next Gen Car.
- Chase Elliott has the most (10) Top 5 finishes on road courses in the Next Gen Car.
- Chevrolet drivers have won both races at the Chicago Street Course.
- Both prior race winners have started from the top 8 positions at the Chicago Street Course.
Dynamic Averages
Our dynamic averages which reflect the past 5 races on road courses will be one of our most important handicapping tools of the weekend. I really like this metric because it shows how drivers have performed in “recent” races on the road courses as opposed to deeper historical analytics. If you observe our dynamic averages, we can quickly deduce that Shane Van Gisbergen leads all drivers by a relatively wide margin with a 116.2 average driver rating. Christopher Bell (102.9) is the only other driver with a triple digit average rating over the last 5 road course events. Surprisingly the gap behind SVG and Bell is even wider with William Byron and Alex Bowman producing solid average driver ratings in the low 90s.
Perhaps more surprising is the fact that we have some serious road course talents in the likes of Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, and Tyler Reddick who have all posted rather mediocre performance metrics in recent road course races. Meanwhile, drivers like AJ Allmendinger, Kyle Busch, Daniel Suarez have seemingly underperformed despite their road course skill sets. Meanwhile, drivers like Ryan Blaney and Denny Hamlin are among the names that are worth mentioning for downright abysmal performance metrics. While neither Hamlin nor Blaney are notoriously strong road course drivers, they have produced some of the worst metrics in the entire series over the last 5 road course events.
Betting Targets
Based on all of our handicapping metrics combined with practice/qualifying results, it is clear that SVG remains the man to beat on Sunday. However, I’m not exactly sure that I am going to aggressively target SVG at his current betting odds which are barely north of even money. Despite being the dominant driver in Saturday’s Xfinity Series race at the Chicago Street Course, SVG needed a late race caution to make-up for lost track position in order to get the victory. The tight racing corridors on the street course make it very difficult to pass which means track position is extremely important. If SVG loses that track position on Sunday, it will not be easy to drive through the field.
For that reason, I like fading SVG and focusing on some of the other drivers that could break through with much better betting odds. I jumped on Christopher Bell and Michael McDowell earlier in the week and really like both drivers as threats to win on Sunday. McDowell led all drivers with the fastest 5 and 10 lap averages in practice and has never finished worse than 7th at Chicago in two prior attempts. Needless to say, McDowell is trending in the right direction. Behind those drivers, Tyler Reddick and Ty Gibbs are both solid road course talents that are hitting on several handicapping angles. Personally, I like both drivers better in H2H formats but they are both capable of capturing breakthrough wins at Chicago as well given the right circumstances.
As we move deeper into the field, I don’t believe we have many drivers that are worthy of huge underdog consideration for the outright win. Keep in mind that while strategy will be important, drivers also have to be towards the front of the field to make strategy successful. Therefore, I don’t see a big possibility of a driver winning that is outside of the 20-1 betting range. However, there are some drivers like Ross Chastain, Austin Cindric, and Bubba Wallace who have ceilings much higher than current betting odds suggest. All 3 of those drivers qualified in the back half of the field and may be strong candidates to move forward in fantasy formats. Wallace and Cole Custer are receiving such enormous odds that they may also be playable in prop bet formats that produce greater yield!
2025 Draftkings Grant Park 165 Optimal Lineup
2025 Grant Park 165 Race Picks
*FINAL* Tyler Reddick +850 (1 unit)
Christopher Bell +900 (1 unit)
*early pick Ty Gibbs +1400 (.75 unit)
*early pick Michael McDowell +2500 (.5 unit)
*early pick H2H Match-Ups and Props
Rickey Stenhouse Jr -140 over Erik Jones (2 units)
Tyler Reddick -115 over William Byron (2 units)
*early pick Joey Logano +350 wins Group D (Blaney, Hamlin, Preece)(1 unit)
*early pick Cole Custer +500 finishes Top 10 (.5 unit)
*early pick