By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service
SONOMA, Calif. — Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway followed form—but not without the stiffest fight of Shane van Gisbergen’s brief NASCAR Cup Series career.
On the other hand, the opening race of the Cup Series’ In-Season Challenge defied the handicappers—at least as far as top-seeded Tyler Reddick was concerned.
For the second straight year, van Gisbergen had to hold off charging Chase Briscoe over the final laps to win at the 1.99-mile, 11-turn road course.
Briscoe closed within one foot of SVG’s bumper in the hairpin (Turn 11) on the final circuit but couldn’t get close enough to the New Zealander’s No. 97 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet to make a move for the win.
“Yeah, what a day,” said van Gisbergen, who finished 0.357 seconds ahead of Briscoe. “We were really bad yesterday (sixth in qualifying), and these guys (the No. 97 crew) did an amazing job turning this car into a winner. The 19 (Briscoe) was coming. He was really, really good, and I ran out at the end.”
Van Gisbergen led three times for 74 for the 110 laps in securing his eighth Cup Series victory in his 68th start, tying NASCAR Hall of Famer Tony Stewart for second-most road course wins, one behind Jeff Gordon’s nine.
The victory was SVG’s second of the season and second straight at Sonoma, and it helped to assuage the frustration of last Sunday’s race at Naval Base Coronado, where he was eliminated in a multicar wreck 32 laps into the contest.
“I was back to normal by the weekend, but, yeah, I was certainly pissed at the start of the week,” van Gisbergen said. “This really makes up for it, sharing it with these guys. They went through it at the start of the week. Pretty special to win.”
But the win was anything but easy, given that the handling of the winning car deteriorated noticeably over the final 27 laps.
“We had these (lapped cars) come out (of the pits) in front, and they were wobbling all over the track and putting dust, and I just kept struggling. Chase was just really, really good. Yeah, a couple more laps (and) we would have had some problems.”
Briscoe might have been able to overtake SVG had he not slipped in Turn 1 with four laps left. The mistake cost him a second and made his task all the more difficult.
“Yeah, just frustrated with myself,” Briscoe said. “I felt like I definitely had the better car. I didn’t do as good of a job as he did driving. I just made a mistake with, like, three or four to go getting into (Turn) 1.
“I was having to push so hard, and that was where I would make up my ground. It was just such a razor’s edge, and I about crashed. Gave up a (full) second, and then I was able to obviously run him back down at the end. If I don’t make that mistake, I’m probably ahead of him, I feel like, at the end.”
Running the first two stages to the end, versus the short-pitting strategy of both SVG and Briscoe, pole winner Ty Gibbs finished third after winning Stage 1 and Stage 2. The defending winner of the $1-million winner-take-all In-Season Challenge eliminated 27th-place finisher Austin Dillon from this year’s tournament.
Reddick wasn’t as fortunate. The 23XI Racing driver lost six laps on pit road with a power steering issue and finished last (36th), as his first-round opponent, 32nd-seeded Alex Bowman, advanced with a 10th-place finish.
Kyle Larson ran a consistent, solid race and finished fourth, followed by Christopher Bell, who came home fifth despite managing a broken wrist.
Ryan Blaney, Connor Zilisch, Ryan Preece, Michael McDowell and Bowman completed the top-10, with Zilisch scoring his first top-10 finish in the Cup Series. Despite his eighth-place run, Preece was eliminated from the In-Season Challenge by SVG.
Despite finishing 26th after spinning off the bumper of Carson Hocevar’s Chevrolet on Lap 64, Denny Hamlin took the series lead by one point over Reddick. Second-seeded Hamlin also avoided elimination from the In-Season Challenge when his first-round opponent, Ty Dillon, developed power steering issues late in the race and came home 35th.
Dillon eliminated Hamlin in last year’s first round and advanced to the final round against Gibbs.
In other In-Season Challenge matchups of note, 12th-seeded Briscoe eliminated 21st-seeded AJ Allmendinger; 25th seed Todd Gilliland upset No. 8 seed Daniel Suarez; 20th-seeded McDowell defeated No. 13 Bubba Wallace; and Austin Cindric topped Brad Keselowski in a battle of 16th and 17th seeds.
The race featured three cautions for eight laps, only one for an on-track incident. There were eight lead changes among six drivers with only SVG and Gibbs (31 laps led) out front for more than two circuits.
The NASCAR Cup Series will race next Sunday, July 5 at Chicagoland Speedway, which has stood idle since 2019. The start time is 5 p.m. ET on TNT, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
Interviews:
NCS Race Winner Shane van Gisbergen (No. 97 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet) –
NCS Race Winning Crew Chief – Stephen Doran (Trackhouse Racing) *Please note there is no audio for the first 1:25 due to audio issues at track –
Upton Stout, Honorary Race Official –
Festus Ezeli, Honorary Pace Car Driver –
Dusty Baker, Honorary Grand Marshal –
Matt Cain, Invocation, Honorary Race Official –
Ken Clapp, West Coast Stock Car Hall of Fame 2026 Inductee Announcement –
NASCAR Cup Series Race – Toyota / Save Mart 350
Sonoma Raceway
Sonoma, California
Sunday, June 28, 2026
1. (6) Shane Van Gisbergen, Chevrolet, 110.
2. (7) Chase Briscoe, Toyota, 110.
3. (1) Ty Gibbs, Toyota, 110.
4. (3) Kyle Larson, Chevrolet, 110.
5. (14) Christopher Bell, Toyota, 110.
6. (16) Ryan Blaney, Ford, 110.
7. (17) Connor Zilisch #, Chevrolet, 110.
8. (19) Ryan Preece, Ford, 110.
9. (4) Michael McDowell, Chevrolet, 110.
10. (22) Alex Bowman, Chevrolet, 110.
11. (2) Carson Hocevar, Chevrolet, 110.
12. (13) William Byron, Chevrolet, 110.
13. (23) Austin Cindric, Ford, 110.
14. (5) Ross Chastain, Chevrolet, 110.
15. (35) Brad Keselowski, Ford, 110.
16. (8) AJ Allmendinger, Chevrolet, 110.
17. (18) Chase Elliott, Chevrolet, 110.
18. (24) Zane Smith, Ford, 110.
19. (15) Chris Buescher, Ford, 110.
20. (27) Cole Custer, Chevrolet, 110.
21. (33) Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Chevrolet, 110.
22. (26) Bubba Wallace, Toyota, 110.
23. (32) Erik Jones, Toyota, 110.
24. (10) Joey Logano, Ford, 110.
25. (20) John Hunter Nemechek, Toyota, 110.
26. (9) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, 110.
27. (30) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 110.
28. (28) Josh Berry, Ford, 110.
29. (29) Todd Gilliland, Ford, 110.
30. (25) Riley Herbst, Toyota, 110.
31. (21) Daniel Suarez, Chevrolet, 110.
32. (34) Noah Gragson, Ford, 110.
33. (36) Cody Ware, Chevrolet, 109.
34. (12) Austin Hill(i), Chevrolet, 109.
35. (31) Ty Dillon, Chevrolet, 109.
36. (11) Tyler Reddick, Toyota, 106.
Average Speed of Race Winner: 83.188 mph.
Time of Race: 2 Hrs, 37 Mins, 53 Secs. Margin of Victory: .357 Seconds.
Caution Flags: 3 for 8 laps.
Lead Changes: 8 among 6 drivers.
Lap Leaders: T. Gibbs 1-27;S. Van Gisbergen 28-52;T. Gibbs 53-56;S. Van Gisbergen 57-82;R. Blaney 83;K. Larson 84-85;W. Byron 86;R. Chastain 87;S. Van Gisbergen 88-110.
Leaders Summary (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led): Shane Van Gisbergen 3 times for 74 laps; Ty Gibbs 2 times for 31 laps; Kyle Larson 1 time for 2 laps; Ross Chastain 1 time for 1 lap; Ryan Blaney 1 time for 1 lap; William Byron 1 time for 1 lap.
Stage #1 Top Ten: 54,20,71,77,60,48,97,43,5,35
Stage #2 Top Ten: 54,20,16,2,1,38,97,88,19,12
