Shane Van Gisbergen, driver of the #88 Red Bull Chevrolet, leads the field during the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway on Sunday. Chris Graythen/Getty Images
Van Gisbergen proves untouchable in Sonoma
By Tom Zulewski
SONOMA – About the only thing that fell short on the day for Shane Van Gisbergen came when his celebratory kick of a rugby ball only went as far as the edge of the back wall on pit road.
“I blame that one on the wind,” Van Gisbergen joked.
Other than that wind-blown flub, SVG delivered a dominating performance in his No. 88 Red Bull Chevrolet and rolled to his third road-course win in the last five weeks, taking the checkered flag at the Toyota/SaveMart 350 on a warm, breezy afternoon July 13 at Sonoma Raceway.
After finishing second to teammate Connor Zilisch in the XFINITY Pit Boss/Food Maxx 250 on July 12, the New Zealander rebounded well enough to lead 97 of the 110 laps and was able to fend off a late challenge from runner-up Chase Briscoe, who started and finished second.
Even as Van Gisbergen had to deal with the closing stretch of three cautions over the final 11 laps, his pit crew led by crew chief Steven Doran wasn’t worried in the least.
“It’s pretty awesome they had that confidence because I certainly didn’t,” Van Gisbergen said. “You never know with NASCAR. On the restarts, everyone goes crazy.”
Van Gisbergen added on TNT’s post-race show, “We had a really fast car, but a really fast car doen’t always win the race.”
The first late caution came at lap 97 when a wheel fell off the 51 car of Cody Ware. It traveled a good distance down track, but didn’t hit any other cars as they drove by. Briscoe led briefly after the final caution came out at lap 105 when Ricky Stenhouse spun in Turn 8, but Van Gisbergen got to the front with little trouble on the final restart and won by 1.128 seconds.
“At the end of these races, a lot can happen,” Briscoe said. “It was a split decision if we should pit or not, but we stayed out and that could go a lot of different ways. I tried to do my best just to stay behind Shane, but even if I had gotten the lead, there was probably only a 10 percent chance I could hold on to it.”
Van Gisbergen short-pitted and finished second to Ross Chastain in Stage 1, but had to survive a bump-and-run fest from a hard-charging Kyle Larson before securing the Stage 2 win. For the first time during the weekend, a caution flag came out early in Stage 3 for an on-track incident..
Ryan Blaney slid off-track after making contact with Chris Buescher as they battled for the third position and the No. 12 Menards Chevrolet got stuck in the dirt to bring out the yellow at lap 62, 48 laps short of the finish.
From there, the green-flag pit stops put Van Gisbergen back in front, and he moved into a tie with Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell with three wins on the season.
After Briscoe, Chase Elliott, Michael McDowell and Bell completed the top five. There were six cautions that took up 17 laps, and the average winning speed was 75.087 mph. With six races left until the playoffs, William Byron leads Elliott by 14 points in the standings. Larson is 44 behind in third.
Among the non-winners who would fill out the playoff field, Tyler Reddick, Chris Buescher, Alex Bowman and Bubba Wallace would advance. Wallace has only a three-point lead over Ryan Preece.
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