Simon Chapman

Ford will enter the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2027 with a two-car team, which will include Australia's Matt Campbell in the driver line-up.

Van Gisbergen was the fourth driver on track in qualifying and lay down a 18.859s in the #71 Chevrolet Silverado.

Qualifying for the Window World 250 was abandoned due to inclement weather, which meant the grid was set based on the performance metric.

Returning to the Spire Motorsports stable for another cameo, the Kiwi started from 19th and worked his way forward in the final stage.

Leon, who was competing as part of the Belgian Grand Prix undercard, was disqualified from Sunday's race in which he had finished seventh.

The Kiwi took the lead of Stage 1 following an early caution, which prompted a flurry of pit stops.

The series and its local broadcaster FOX had hoped for record viewership off the back of the FIFA World Cup final. However, rain arrived just before the race was scheduled to start.

The result equals van Gisbergen's efforts earlier this year at Nashville Superspeedway in almost identical circumstances when qualifying was rained out and gave SVG a good starting spot.

The Trackhouse Racing driver scored the third-most points of any driver at the short oval, finishing second in Stage 1, fifth in Stage 2 and fifth again in Stage 3.

The Australian is in the running to graduate from Moto2 to MotoGP next year with Tech3.