By Cameron Bebeau, Staff Writer
Holding off a hard-charging Chase Briscoe, Shane van Gisbergen won the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway on Sunday, sweeping the weekend at Sonoma.
One day after winning Saturday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race, van Gisbergen returned to the 1.99-mile road course and completed the weekend with a Cup Series victory, the eighth of his career.
Despite the success, it wasn’t as comfortable as it looked for much of the afternoon.
Van Gisbergen led 74 of 110 laps and controlled the final run, but Briscoe closed rapidly in the final laps and cut the margin to 0.357 seconds by the end of the race. Afterward, van Gisbergen admitted that the No. 19 Toyota was coming quickly.
“The 19 was coming,” Van Gisbergen said. “He was really, really good, and I ran out at the end.”
Briscoe believed he had a car capable of winning, but said a mistake in Turn 1 with a few laps remaining cost him the chance to complete the pass.
“Not very many people get that close to him at the end of one of these road course races,” Briscoe said. “Against that guy, you got to be absolutely perfect.”
The ending was especially tense because van Gisbergen did not feel like he had the dominant car at the end. “The last ten laps I was really in a world of hurt,” van Gisbergen said. “I’m really thankful it wasn’t one or two laps longer.”
Before the late battle between van Gisbergen and Briscoe took shape, Ty Gibbs controlled the opening portion of the race from the pole.
The first stage went caution-free, allowing strategy to influence the stage outcome. Several teams chose to split the stage by pitting before pit road closed, giving up stage points in exchange for track position once Stage 2 started.
Gibbs stayed out and won Stage 1, followed by Christopher Bell, McDowell, Carson Hocevar and Ryan Preece.
The call gave Gibbs the stage win, but it also put him behind more than 20 cars that had already made their stops. When Stage 2 began, van Gisbergen moved to the front, with Larson keeping him within reach during the early part of the stage.
Tyler Reddick’s afternoon began to unravel during the second stage when his team went under the hood to diagnose a power steering issue. Reddick, one of the strongest road-course racers, eventually finished 36th, four laps down.
Gibbs later worked his way back into position to win Stage 2 as well, sweeping the opening stages. Bell finished second, followed by Allmendinger, Austin Cindric and Ross Chastain.
Bell’s stage finish came after a close call on pit road. During a stop, his tire changer stopped him before he fully left the stall so the team could re-tighten the wheel. Had the wheel come off on the racing surface, Bell would have faced a two-lap penalty and damage that could’ve hindered their day.
The final stage brought the race’s only incident-related caution. Shortly after the restart, Cindric and Josh Berry made contact in Turn 2, sending Berry around and stacking up several drivers behind him.
The restart after this opened the door for one of the messiest stretches of the race. Denny Hamlin, who had been running in the top 10, spun on Lap 64 and fell deep in the field. Because of Reddick’s woes, Hamlin was actually the points leader for a short time, before ultimately finishing the race in 26th, second in the season-long points.
Following his spin, Todd Gilliland also went for a spin, followed by Chase Elliott, John Hunter Nemechek and Cody Ware all having separate incidents that didn’t warrant a caution.
Blaney, Larson, William Byron and Chastain each spent time at the front as strategy played out, but van Gisbergen returned to the lead on Lap 88 and never relinquished it.
Briscoe kept coming, but van Gisbergen never gave him a clean opportunity, even with his handling issues. He crossed the finish line less than half a second ahead, completing the Sonoma sweep and adding another road-course victory to his Cup Series resume, which ties him with Tony Stewart for the second most road-course wins in Cup Series history.
Briscoe finished second after one of his strongest runs of the season. Gibbs finished third after leading 31 laps and sweeping both stages, while Larson and Bell rounded out the top five.
The race featured three cautions for eight laps and eight lead changes among six drivers.
Next, the NASCAR Cup Series heads to Chicagoland Speedway for the first time since 2019 on July 5.