The 2014 NASCAR Cup Series champion-turned-commentator Kevin Harvick has shared his insights and predicted the winner for the DuraMAX Grand Prix, which is set to take place this weekend. He’s going with road course ringer to win Sunday’s DuraMAX Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas (COTA).

On the recent episode of the “Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour” podcast, former champion Harvick and his co-hosts, Kaitlyn Vincie and Mamba Smith, picked the driver they believe has a strong chance to win the season’s first road course event at COTA on Sunday, March 1.

Harvick picked Trackhouse Racing’s Shane van Gisbergen to win this year’s COTA race. SVG is often referred to as a road course ringer because of his proven track record of success on road courses, and all of his six career Cup wins came at road courses.

Picking the 2026 DuraMAX Grand Prix winner, Harvick said:

“I’ll take SVG.” [53:50]

Kevin Harvick’s co-host, Kaitlyn Vincie, also picked SVG to win for the first time at COTA.

Meanwhile, co-host Mamba Smith picked Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell to win this weekend. Bell is the defending winner of the event.

“I really want to go, Connor. So far, when he’s run the cup races, it just hasn’t been. I also want to go to RFK car because they have been putting up one of the best fights, but I haven’t seen it at COTA. So, I’m going to go with a known commodity of what I know. Chris Buescher, Ryan Priest, road courses. Did you not remember what they did last year? They had speed. I’m just going to go with the #20 of Christopher Bell. I think it’s kind of low hanging fruit” Smith said.

How has Kevin Harvick’s top pick performed at the Circuit of the Americas?

Shane van Gisbergen has never won at COTA. He has made only two starts, finishing sixth and 12th.

Last year, SVG started and finished 6th at COTA. During that race, he showed strong pace by leading 23 laps and scoring 14 stage points, overcoming an incident that briefly dropped him to 11th before rallying to a P6 finish.

SVG finished 30th in the season-opening Daytona 500 and sixth in the recently concluded Atlanta race. He has the best odds of +100 to win his first COTA NASCAR Cup Series race.

It will be interesting to see how Kevin Harvick and his co-hosts’ picks fare at Circuit of the Americas. Watch the 2026 season’s second race on FOX at 3:30 pm ET.