These Are NASCAR's Foreign-Born Race Winners

NASCAR’s first foreign-born winner is likely the most famous, Mario Andretti. The racing legend occasionally raced in NASCAR’s top division and won the 1967 Daytona 500 in a Hulman-Moody Ford, two years before his Indianapolis 500 victory. The Italian-born driver became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1964 but had to claim that he was born in his adopted hometown of Nazareth, Pennsylvania to avoid the xenophobic ire of race officials.

It would take seven years before NASCAR would have its next foreign-born race winner. Canadian driver Earl Ross won the 1974 Old Dominion 500 at Martinsville Speedway with Junior Johnson en route to becoming that season’s Winston Cup Rookie of the Year. It would be easier to assume that this would be the start of a fruitful career in NASCAR, but Ross left a few years later and spent the rest of his career in the regional short-track scene. Ross remains the only Canadian to win in the NASCAR Cup Series.

Canadian Larry Pollard spent the early part of his NASCAR career as a crew chief before deciding to return to the driver’s seat in 1985. Pollard became the first foreign-born winner in the NASCAR Busch Series with a victory in the 1987 Busch 200 at Langley Speedway. He would suffer and survive a basilar skull fracture in a crash the next year. Pollack miraculously returned to the Busch Series in 1990.

Ron Fellows is much better known for his time as a driver with Corvette Racing. In a Chevrolet Corvette C5-R, the Canadian driver won the 2001 and 2002 24 Hours of Le Mans in class. Fellows split his time in sports car racing with NASCAR appearance as a road course ringer. His first Truck Series win was the 1997 Parts America 150 at Watkins Glen, but his final win was the most memorable. Fellows won a wet-weather Nationwide Series race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal in 2008, a home victory at the track named after the childhood hero he watched race there.

Colombian driver Juan Pablo Montoya spent two seasons in the United States competing in CART before heading to Formula 1. When his time was up in F1, he didn’t return to IndyCar but moved to NASCAR with Chip Ganassi Racing. Montoya won in both the Cup Series and the Busch Series during his first full stock car racing season in 2007.

Like Shane van Gisbergen, Marcos Ambrose decided to make the jump to NASCAR in 2006 after a successful career in the Australian Supercars Championship. The two-time Supercars champion won his first Cup Series race at Watkins Glen in 2011 and won there again the next year. Ambrose is the most successful foreign-born driver in NASCAR history, with seven wins across all three national divisions.

After the end of his Formula 1 career and bringing the Crashgate scandal to light but before becoming Formula E’s inaugural champion, Nelson Piquet Jr. spent time trying to break into NASCAR. The Brazilian driver and son of the three-time F1 champion won three national division races in 2012, an Xfinity Series road course race at Road America and two Truck Series oval races at Michigan and Las Vegas.

Stewart Friesen was born in Ontario, Canada but spent the early part of his racing career competing on short tracks across the Northeastern United States. Friesen has competed in the NASCAR Truck Series as a driver and team co-owner since 2017. He has three wins in the series, with the first being the 2019 Eldora Dirt Derby.

Raphael Lessard is another Canadian that has spent his entire career in stock car racing. Lessard was born in Quebec, Canada and spent his only full season in the NASCAR Truck Series with Kyle Busch Motorsports in 2020. During that season, he won the Chevrolet Silverado 250 at Talladega Superspeedway. Lessard’s time in the national divisions ended when his Xfinity Series team owner was arrested on sexual harassment charges.

Daniel Suarez is a product of the NASCAR Mexico Series and became the first foreign-born driver to win any of the three NASCAR national division championships when he became the 2016 Xfinity Series champion. He is also the only foreign-born driver to win races in all three divisions. Suarez then moved to the Cup Series in 2017 with Joe Gibbs Racing. He won his first Cup Series race with Trackhouse in 2022, the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway.

Shane van Gisbergen made his one-off appearance in the NASCAR Cup Series as a part of Trackhouse’s Project 91 program, an initiative aimed at getting international stars the opportunity to compete in stock car racing’s highest division in top-tier equipment. After his impressive win in the Grant Park 220 in downtown Chicago, the three-time Supercars champion hinted that he might move full-time to NASCAR in the future.