Shane van Gisbergen rallied from a DNF last weekend at San Diego and, being displeased with his race car at the start of this weekend’s festivities at Sonoma, California, to earn a dominant NASCAR Cup Series victory in the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway on Sunday, June 28.
The three-time Supercars champion from Auckland, New Zealand, led three times for a race-high 74 of 110-scheduled laps in an event where he was fifth-fastest in practice and sixth-fastest in qualifying. Through strategic pit moves by pitting prior to the event’s first two-stage periods for track positions for the ensuing stages, van Gisbergen was untouchable when leading at the start of the final two-stage periods.
After cycling to the lead for the event’s third and final stage period with 51 laps remaining, van Gisbergen executed the final restart with 47 laps remaining to perfection as he motored away from teammate Connor Zilisch, Chase Briscoe, and the field prior to entering the first turn. Despite having Briscoe reeling in as the laps dwindled, van Gisbergen had enough power to fend off the latter, including on the final lap, to motor his way to a second consecutive Cup victory in Sonoma and reignite his road-course dominance.
With on-track qualifying that determined the starting lineup occurring on Saturday, June 27, Ty Gibbs secured his first Cup pole position of the 2026 season with a pole-winning lap at 95.738 mph in 74.829 seconds. Carson Hocevar qualified in second place with a lap at 95.706 mph in 74.854 seconds. Prior to the event, a trio of names that included Noah Gragson, Erik Jones, and Bubba Wallace dropped to the rear of the field due to unapproved adjustments that were made to their respective entries.
When the green flag waved, and the event commenced, pole-sitter Ty Gibbs and Carson Hocevar dueled through the first two turns until Hocevar managed to motor his No. 77 Classic Collision Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 entry ahead entering the third turn. As the field fanned out and jostled for spots from Turns 3a to 7a, Gibbs made a move beneath Hocevar through 7a and reassumed the lead entering the Esses. Soon after, Michael McDowell made a move beneath teammate Hocevar and assumed the runner-up spot through Turn 11. Meanwhile, Gibbs proceeded to lead the first lap.
Throughout the next four laps, Gibbs maintained a steady advantage (seven-tenths of a second) over McDowell while Kyle Larson, Shane van Gisbergen, and AJ Allmendinger trailed in the top-five mark, respectively. Meanwhile, Hocevar dropped to eighth place as he trailed Ross Chastain and Chase Briscoe in the leaderboard while Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell occupied the remaining top-10 spots over Joey Logano, William Byron, Ryan Blaney, Austin Hill, Chase Elliott, Tyler Reddick, Chris Buescher, Ryan Preece, Connor Zilisch, and Daniel Suarez, respectively.
Through the Lap 10 mark, Gibbs stretched his early advantage to more than a second over runner-up McDowell while van Gisbergen, Allmendinger, and Larson trailed by as far back as five seconds on the track. Behind, Chastain, Briscoe, Hamlin, Bell and Hocevar were racing in the top-10 mark ahead of Hocevar, Byron, Blaney, Logano and Elliott while Hill, Reddick, Preece, Buescher, Zilisch and Alex Bowman were mired in the top-20 mark ahead of Daniel Suarez, Austin Cindric, John Hunter Nemechek, Riley Herbst, Zane Smith, Bubba Wallace, Austin Dillon, Ty Dillon, Cole Custer and Todd Gilliland, respectively. Meanwhile, Erik Jones, Josh Berry, Brad Keselowski, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Noah Gragson, and Cody Ware trailed at the tail end of the 36-car field.
On Lap 12, van Gisbergen zipped past McDowell through Turn 12 to assume the runner-up spot. By the next lap, van Gisbergen reduced Gibbs’ advantage to nine-tenths of a second while Suarez made an unscheduled pit stop to have a flat tire addressed. As Briscoe marched his way into fifth place over Allmendinger and Hamlin, McDowell and Larson remained in third and fourth, respectively, while Gibbs stabilized his lead to more than a second over van Gisbergen by Lap 15.
On Lap 21, pit strategies ensued as Austin Hill and Connor Zilisch pitted their respective Chevrolet entries. A multitude of names that included Blaney, Byron, Elliott, Allmendinger, Chastain, Logano, Reddick, Cindric, Nemechek, Buescher, Wallace, Zane Smith, Austin Dillon, Gilliland, Brad Keselowski, and Cole Custer pitted during the next lap while top-five competitors van Gisbergen, Larson, Briscoe and Hamlin pitted for the following lap. During the pit stops, Austin Dillon was penalized for speeding on pit road. With pit road becoming inaccessible to the field on Lap 23 due to the first stage period nearing its conclusion, Gibbs, who has not yet pitted, retained the lead.
When the first stage period concluded on Lap 25, Gibbs, who has led every lap thus far, motored his No. 54 SAIA Toyota Camry XSE entry to his second Cup stage victory of the 2026 season. Teammate Bell followed suit in second ahead of McDowell, Hocevar, and Preece while Bowman, van Gisbergen, Erik Jones, Larson, and Riley Herbst were scored in the top 10, respectively. By then, all 36 starters were scored on the lead lap. Under the event’s first stage break period, a total of 13 competitors led by Gibbs pitted while the rest led by van Gisbergen and Larson remained on the track. Not long after, Reddick’s No. 45 Toyota team lifted the hood up on the entry due to a power steering issue. With Reddick making repeated pit stops to have the issue addressed, he dropped out of the lead lap category as he remained in his pit stall prior to the second stage’s start.
The second stage period started on Lap 29 as van Gisbergen and Larson occupied the front row. At the start, van Gisbergen fended off Larson through the first two turns to motor his No. 97 Red Bull Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 entry into the lead. As the field fanned out, bumped and scrambled for spots from Turns 3 to 7a, van Gisbergen retained the top spot from the Esses through Turn 11. Van Gisbergen then led the next lap and he kept Larson trailing from behind just past the Lap 30 mark while Briscoe, Blaney, Byron, Zilisch, Hamlin, Chastain, Elliott and Logano occupied the top-10 spots, respectively.
Just past the Lap 35 mark, van Gisbergen stretched his advantage to more than a second over Larson as Briscoe, Blaney, Byron, Zilisch, Hamlin, Allmendinger, Elliott, and Wallace were racing in the top 10 ahead of Chastain, Logano, Nemechek, Buescher, Ty Gibbs, Bell, Cindric, Zane Smith, Keselowski, and McDowell, respectively. Meanwhile, Reddick, who was able to continue, was strapped at the tail end of the field and six laps behind the leaders while teammate Wallace, who had carved his way into the top-10 mark after starting at the tail end of the field, got loose in the Esses, but came to a brief stop before continuing through the Esses’ shortcut and being mired back within the top-25 mark when he blended back on the racing surface. Wallace’s maneuver occurred on Lap 37.
Between Laps 40 to 45, van Gisbergen maintained a reasonable lead as his lead stood to more than four seconds over Briscoe by the Lap 45 mark, while Blaney, Larson, Zilisch, Byron, Hamlin, Allmendinger, Elliott, and Gibbs were scored in the top 10, respectively. Meanwhile, a pair of 23XI Racing competitors endured on-track issues. The first was Wallace, who was pushed off the track by Todd Gilliland in the second turn after Wallace had gotten loose and bumped into Gilliland’s No. 34 Love’s Ford Mustang Dark Horse entry, which sent both up the racing groove in Turn 11 while battling for a top-25 spot. Seconds later, Herbst went off the course in Turn 3a after he was rubbed by Gilliland.
On Lap 47, Austin Hill pitted his No. 33 zone Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 entry under green before Buescher and Gragson pitted during the next lap. As van Gisbergen continued to lead by more than eight seconds at the Lap 50 mark, a trio of competitors that included Keselowski, McDowell and Preece pitted by the following lap while Briscoe, Larson, Hamlin, Byron, Elliott, Nemechek, Hocevar, Alex Bowman, Ty Dillon, Custer, Gilliland, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Josh Berry, Logano, Suarez and Herbst pitted during the next lap. Van Gisbergen then pitted from the lead along with runner-up Blaney and third-place Zilisch before pit road became inaccessible due to the second stage period nearing its conclusion. Meanwhile, Gibbs cycled as the leader ahead of teammate Bell.
When the second stage period concluded on Lap 55, Gibbs captured his second consecutive Cup stage victory of the Sonoma event and his third of the 2026 season. Teammate Bell settled in second place for a second consecutive stage period while Allmendinger, Austin Cindric, Chastain, Zane Smith, van Gisbergen, Zilisch, Briscoe and Blaney were scored in the top 10, respectively. By then, all but one of 36 starters were scored on the lead lap. During the event’s second stage break period, 13 competitors led by Gibbs pitted while the rest led by van Gisbergen, teammate Zilisch and Briscoe remained on the track. Amid the pit stops, Bell had to reverse his entry back into his pit stall to have a loose wheel tightened.
With 51 laps remaining, the final stage period commenced as teammates van Gisbergen and Zilisch occupied the front row in front of Briscoe, Blaney, Larson and Hamlin, respectively. At the start, van Gisbergen motored ahead of Zilisch to clear him with the lead prior to entering the first turn. As the field fanned out while jostling for spots and stacking up entering Turn 7a, van Gisbergen retained the lead throughout the Sonoma circuit while Zilisch and Briscoe reeled in from behind. As van Gisbergen led the next lap and maintained the top spot by a steady margin over both Zilisch and Briscoe, the caution then flew due to Cindric and Berry making contact that sent Berry spinning in Turn 2 while Gragson and Wallace stacked up to avoid colliding into Berry.
The next restart with 47 laps remaining featured van Gisbergen rocketing away from the field at the launch while Briscoe challenged Zilisch for the runner-up spot. Briscoe managed to assume the runner-up spot from Zilisch through the second turn as van Gisbergen led a stacked field from Turns 3 to 7a. As Denny Hamlin spun from the top-10 mark in Turn 7a due to getting bumped by Carson Hocevar, the field smoothly navigated through the Esses and Turns 10 and 11, though Gilliland spun in Turn 11, while van Gisbergen led the next lap. With 45 laps remaining, Elliott spun in between Turns 4a to 7a and Nemechek spun in 7a, but the event remained under green as van Gisbergen led by half a second over Briscoe and by seven-tenths of a second over Zilisch with 44 laps remaining.
Down to the final 40 laps of the event, van Gisbergen stretched his advantage to more than a second over both Briscoe and Zilisch while Blaney and Larson trailed in the top-five mark by two and three seconds, respectively. Behind, McDowell, Byron, Preece, Gibbs and Hocevar trailed in the top 10 while Bowman, Ty Dillon, Keselowski, Bell, Stenhouse, Cindric, Chastain, Custer, Logano and Herbst were racing in the top-20 mark ahead of Allmendinger, Berry, Erik Jones, Zane Smith, Austin Hill, Suarez, Wallace, Elliott, Buescher, Gragson, Austin Dillon, Gilliland, Nemechek, Hamlin and Cody Ware, respectively. Meanwhile, Reddick was mired four laps behind the leaders in 36th place.
With 31 laps remaining, a late cycle of green flag pit stops commenced as Elliott pitted his No. 9 NAPA Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 entry under green before teammate Bowman, Cindric, Custer, Logano, Erik Jones, Gilliland, Preece, Allmendinger, McDowell, Ty Dillon, Keselowski, Gragson, Herbst, Cody Ware, runner-up Briscoe and third-place Zilisch pitted over the next two laps. The leader van Gisbergen then pitted under green with 27 laps remaining and he managed to blend back on the racing surface in front of Briscoe’s No. 19 Columbia Bank Toyota Camry XSE entry during the next lap.
Due to van Gisbergen pitting, Blaney, who was among many who has yet to do so, cycled to the lead and the latter led until Larson overtook him with 26 laps remaining. Larson proceeded to lead by a second over Gibbs while Blaney, Byron and Hocevar were scored in the top five, respectively. By then, Bell pitted under green along with teammate Hamlin and Wallace while van Gisbergen was mired in ninth place. Larson then surrendered the lead to pit under green with 24 laps remaining along with Gibbs, Blaney and Hocevar while Byron, Chastain and van Gisbergen cycled into the top-three spots. Once Byron pitted with 23 laps remaining and Chastain during the following lap, van Gisbergen cycled back as the leader with 22 laps remaining, with the latter leading by more than a second over runner-up Briscoe and by more than four seconds over third-place Zilisch.
As the event reached its final 20-lap mark, van Gisbergen continued to lead by more than a second over Briscoe while Zilisch continued to trail in third place by nearly five seconds. Behind, Larson and Gibbs were racing in fourth and fifth ahead of McDowell, Bell, Preece, Bowman and Blaney while Hill, Byron, Hocevar, Cindric and Keselowski positioned themselves for top-15 spots ahead of Allmendinger, Suarez, Suarez, Ty Dillon and Chastain, respectively.
Five laps later, van Gisbergen stabilized his lead to one-and-a-half seconds over Briscoe while Larson, who assumed third place from Zilisch four laps earlier, retained the spot over the latter. By then, Gibbs only trailed Zilisch by six-tenths of a second in fifth place as McDowell, Preece, Blaney, Bowman and Byron were scored in the top 10, respectively. As both Gibbs and Bell Zilisch overtook Zilisch for top-five spots over the next five laps, Larson retained third place by more than five seconds while van Gisbergen maintained the lead by seven-tenths of a second over Briscoe with 10 laps remaining.
Down to the final five laps, van Gisbergen retained the lead by more than a second over Briscoe, with Larson, Gibbs and Bell continuing to race within the top-five mark. Van Gisbergen initially stabilized his lead to within a second over Briscoe as the laps dwindled, but with two laps remaining, Briscoe started to reel in towards van Gisbergen’s rear bumper as van Gisbergen had a handful of lapped traffic in front of him through every turn.
When the white flag waved and the final lap started, van Gisbergen remained in the lead by half a second over a hard-charging Briscoe. From the first turn through Turn 10, van Gisbergen remained atop the leaderboard, but Briscoe kept the latter close and within his sights while trying to gain as much ground. Then exiting Turn 10, Briscoe reeled in and tried to bump van Gisbergen through Turn 11 to stall the momentum and gain a run for the lead. Briscoe, however, was not close enough through the 11th turn and missed his mark as van Gisbergen managed to motor away. With the checkered flag flying, van Gisbergen managed to beat Briscoe for the victory by three-tenths of a second.
With the victory, Shane van Gisbergen notched his eighth career win in the NASCAR Cup Series division, all of which have occurred on road course events. As a result, the New Zealander tied himself with Tony Stewart for having the second-most victories on road course events as the former is a single road course victory away from tying Jeff Gordon for the most at nine. Van Gisbergen also achieved his second consecutive Cup victory at Sonoma, his second victory of the 2026 season, and his first since he won at Watkins Glen International in early May. The Sonoma victory was also the fifth of the 2026 season for the Chevrolet manufacturer and the second for Trackhouse Racing.
“What a day,” van Gisbergen, who became the first competitor to win the O’Reilly and Cup events at Sonoma on the same weekend, said on the frontstretch on TNT Sports. “We were really bad yesterday and these [No. 97] guys did an amazing job turning this car into a winner. [Briscoe] was coming. He was really, really good, and I ran out at the end. Pretty special to make up for last week, too. I was back to normal by the weekend [after San Diego], but yeah, I was certainly pissed at the start of the week. This [win] truly makes up for it, sharing it with these guys and they went through it at the start of the week. Pretty special to win.”
Prior to Sonoma, van Gisbergen was ranked in 17th place in the 2026 driver’s standings and he trailed the top-16 cutline to make the Chase by five points. After winning at Sonoma, he jumped up three spots in the standings to 14th place and is 24 points above the cutline. With eight regular-season events remaining until the Chase commences, van Gisbergen sets his sights on maintaining his momentum and improving his racing craft on ovals as he strives to make the Chase and contend for a Cup Series title prior to this season’s conclusion.
“[The win] certainly helps [with our Chase hopes], but yeah, I need to really step it up on the ovals and we all do,” van Gisbergen added. “[The win] certainly helps us, but this [sport] is an oval championship and I need to keep getting better at them.”
Chase Briscoe settled in second place at Sonoma Raceway for a second consecutive year and for his sixth top-five result of the 2026 season. The runner-up result did very little to ease Briscoe’s disappointment as he came within striking distance of notching his first victory of the 2026 campaign and dethroning van Gisbergen’s title in Sonoma, California.
“I was better [than van Gisbergen],” Briscoe said. “I just messed up with three or four [laps] to go getting into [Turn] 1. I don’t know. I didn’t time my downshift right and about wrecked. I lost a ton of ground and was able to run him back down, but if I don’t make that mistake, I, truthfully, probably win the race. That one is going to sting for a while. Trying to beat him would just be a big accomplishment. Proud of our Columbia Bank Toyota group. That one stings. That one is a tough one.”
Ty Gibbs, the pole winner who led 31 laps and won the event’s first two stage periods, finished in third place for his sixth top-five result of the 2026 season. Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell, the latter of whom completed the entire event without being relieved amid a fractured left wrist, finished in the top five.
Ryan Blaney, who was taken to the infield care center at the event’s conclusion due to his cool suit failing, finished in sixth place ahead of rookie Connor Zilisch, the latter of whom achieved his first top-10 career result in the Cup circuit amid a difficult rookie campaign. Ryan Preece, Michael McDowell, and Alex Bowman completed the top 10 in the final running order.
Notably, Denny Hamlin, who never recovered from his late-race spin, ended up in 26th place while Tyler Reddick, who posted the event’s fastest lap on Lap 80, ended up at the tail end of the final running order in 36th place.
There were eight lead changes for six different leaders. The event featured three cautions for eight laps. In addition, 32 of 36 starters finished on the lead lap, while all starters finished the event overall.
Following the 18th event of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season, Denny Hamlin, with his 26th-place result, leads the standings by a single point over Tyler Reddick, while Ryan Blaney trails by 104 points, Ty Gibbs trails by 130, and Kyle Larson trails by 148.
Shane van Gisbergen, along with Alex Bowman, Austin Cindric, Todd Gilliland, Carson Hocevar, Chase Briscoe, Ty Gibbs, Michael McDowell, Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin, Erik Jones, Chris Buescher, Christopher Bell, William Byron, Kyle Larson, and Ryan Blaney are the 16 competitors who transfer through to the second In-Season Challenge round for next Sunday’s event at Chicagoland Speedway.
Results:
- Shane van Gisbergen, 74 laps led
- Chase Briscoe
- Ty Gibbs, 31 laps led, Stages 1 & 2 winner
- Kyle Larson, two laps led
- Christopher Bell
- Ryan Blaney, one lap led
- Connor Zilisch
- Ryan Preece
- Michael McDowell
- Alex Bowman
- Carson Hocevar
- William Byron, one lap led
- Austin Cindric
- Ross Chastain, one lap led
- Brad Keselowski
- AJ Allmendinger
- Chase Elliott
- Zane Smith
- Chris Buescher
- Cole Custer
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- Bubba Wallace
- Erik Jones
- Joey Logano
- John Hunter Nemechek
- Denny Hamlin
- Austin Dillon
- Josh Berry
- Todd Gilliland
- Riley Herbst
- Daniel Suarez
- Noah Gragson
- Cody Ware, one lap down
- Austin Hill, one lap down
- Ty Dillon, one lap down
- Tyler Reddick, four laps down
Next on the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the series’ return to Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Illinois, for the eero 400. The event is scheduled to occur next Sunday, July 5, and air at 6 p.m. ET on TNT Sports, MRN Radio, SiriusXM, and HBO MAX.
