Another week, another win for Shane van Gisbergen.
The Trackhouse Racing driver made it back-to-back wins for the first time in his young NASCAR Cup Series career with a dominating victory at Sonoma Raceway.
Van Gisbergen took the pole position for Sunday’s race in Sonoma after sweeping the pole positions and the race wins in both the Xfinity and Cup Series events last weekend in Chicago.
This weekend was a similar story with even more dominance on race day. In all, van Gisbergen led 97 of the 110 laps of the race. He’s by far the top driver on road courses this year with three wins (Mexico City, Chicago, Sonoma) out of four races.
‘Trackhouse Racing gave me a great Chevrolet again. What a great couple of weeks!’ van Gisbergen said after the race. ‘Just to execute, make no mistakes, have great pit stops, great strategy and be able to hold them off there at the end – it’s incredible. Chase (Briscoe) was driving really well. We had a lot of fun there.”
The New Zealander started Sunday’s race from the pole and kept in front early. He pitted just before the end of Stage 1, ceding the stage win to fellow Trackhouse Racing driver Ross Chastain, and re-took the lead soon after his stop to win Stage 2.
Another pit stop dropped him down the order during Stage 3 but he quickly recovered to take the lead once again by lap 90. He kept control through late caution periods to secure the win.
Chase Briscoe came home second – exactly where he started the race. Chase Elliott, Michael McDowell and Christopher Bell rounded out the top five.
‘I don’t know if I really saw everything (van Gisbergen) had, truthfully,’ Briscoe said after the race. ‘I felt like every time I would get close; he would just start driving back away. We were definitely the second-best car. I don’t really know what more I need – maybe a little bit a grip. But even if I had a little more grip, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to gain the speed that he had.
‘But overall, great day for the Bass Pro Shops Toyota. This is by far my worst race track, so to run second to him, it definitely means a lot, so proud of the day.”
Round three of the in-season challenge saw the 32-driver field whittled down once again. Four drivers remain: Ty Dillon, John Hunter Nemechek, Ty Gibbs and Tyler Reddick.
Dillon and Nemechek square off next week in the top half of the bracket, while Gibbs and Reddick face off to decide the bottom half of the bracket.
The rest of the Cup Series field will have a much better chance at victory next weekend in Dover. That’s also the penultimate round of the NASCAR in-season challenge that will leave two drivers in contention for the $1 million prize.
NASCAR Cup race at Sonoma extended highlights
NASCAR in-season challenge: Round 4 bracket
Thirty-two drivers entered the in-season challenge. After three rounds, just four remain, including just one driver from the top 10 seeds. Here’s the bracket entering Round 4 in Dover:
Top half of bracket
No. 32 Ty Dillon vs. No. 12 John Hunter Nemechek
Bottom half of bracket
No. 23 Tyler Reddick vs. No. 6 Ty Gibbs
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