SONOMA, Calif. – Auckland, New Zealand’s own Shane Van Gisbergen flexed his road racing muscle to win in Sonoma, leading a record number of laps at the 1.99-mile road course Sunday.
Van Gisbergen paced the field from pole position for 97 laps, setting a new record for the most laps led on this style of track. It was Van Gisbergen’s third road course win from the pole and second in the past two weeks, tying Hall of Fame driver Jeff Gordon for the most all-time.
“It's hard to put into words,” Van Gisbergen said. The Trackhouse Racing driver joined Mark Martin and Kyle Busch as four time winners on the road, but had to survive three late restarts.
“With NASCAR, on the restarts, everyone goes crazy,” Van Gisbergen said. “I knew (Briscoe) wasn't going to do anything stupid, but he got really close at turn two a couple of times.”
Van Gisbergen built such a lead after each green flag run, that he cycled out in second during Stage 1 and won Stage 2. He earned a total of 59 points, one point shy of the 60-point record.
On Saturday, teammate Connor Zilisch shattered Van Gisbergen’s bid at four-straight national series wins. “Thanks for not being in the race,” Van Gisbergen said jokingly about Zilisch.
“We've really started getting better,” Van Gisbergen said about oval racing. “'I’m not under any illusion we're going to go out next week and win, but I'd like to keep that progression going.”
Van Gisbergen sits 26th in points, but shares the series lead in wins with Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell and Kyle Larson. He and crew chief Stephen Doran expect progress on ovals.
Joe Gibbs Racing driver Chase Briscoe led three of his teammates to finish inside of the top 10. The Mitchell, Indianapolis native qualified outside pole to Van Gisbergen and finished in second.
“The car is so important,” Briscoe said. “Your car just makes such a big difference at this level and Joe Gibbs Racing has incredible cars week in and week out, it makes it a lot easier for me.”
Briscoe believed that he didn’t do anything different today than any weekend before.“This is the easiest I’ve ever been able to go around this place and have the speed and balance,” Briscoe said.
“It was a fun day,” Briscoe said. Briscoe had never run a lap inside the top five at Sonoma before JGR and left with an average running position of third, moving up from 10th to 8th in the points.
California native, Kyle Larson, continued his summer slump after leading his first laps since the Coke 600. Larson earned nine stage points but got wrecked on the final restart, finishing in 35th.
Regular season points battle between teammates William Byron and Chase Elliott continued. Byron entered the race 13 ahead of Elliott and left up by 14 after earning more stage points.
Elliott earned his seventh top-five finish of the season, his fourth in the last five races. Elliott pitted for tires with 11 to go, but the late cautions didn’t allow him to run down the leaders.
For the In-Season Tournament, No. 32 seeded Ty Dillon of Kaulig Racing busted more brackets by beating No. 8 seed Alex Bowman. After the race, Dillon said the glass slipper fit once more.
Next week the Cup Series tackles the ‘Monster Mile’ of Dover Motor Speedway for the AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400. Denny Hamlin is the defending Dover winner.
400 miles of action on the high banked corners awaits Round 4 of the In-Season Tournament. Catch the race live on cable television with TNT Sports at 2 p.m. ET with streaming on MAX.