Martin Truex Jnr has won the NASCAR Cup Series race at Sonoma Raceway and celebrated in wine country for the fourth time in his career.
The veteran driver led a race-high 51 laps in his #19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry, and he held off a hard-charging Kyle Busch on the final 14 laps of the race. Busch finished second overall while Joey Logano crossed the finish line third.
“I wish we had a little bit more,” said Busch after the race.
“I tried really hard at the end to at least try to keep Martin honest. Felt like I could beat him a little bit on a lap, then I would mess up.
“He would beat me by a little bit more on the next lap. We were just kind of trading a little bit there. He was able to pull away there late.”
Chris Buescher and Chase Elliott rounded out the top five while Michael McDowell, who had one of the best cars in the field, missed out on an opportunity to win his first race since the 2021 Daytona 500.
Buy tickets
McDowell’s crew had a problem with the right-front tyre on the final pit stop, which dropped him from third to 11th. He ultimately made his way to seventh overall before crossing the finish line.
Truex, the 2017 Cup Series champion, did not have the best car in the initial laps. That distinction belonged to Denny Hamlin’s #11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry.
Hamlin led every lap of Stage 1 after starting from pole while Truex started eighth and worked his way up to second in the sister #19 Camry.
It appeared that Hamlin would be the car to beat, especially after he maintained his lead after the first set of pit stops, though the situation changed on Laps 32 and 33.
Truex dived to the inside entering the tight Turn 11 while Hamlin went wide, which opened up the opportunity for the veteran to pull alongside his team-mate.
Truex ultimately took the lead for the first time in Turn 3 and went on to build up a lead of more than two seconds.
Truex and Hamlin were well ahead of the rest for the majority of Stage 2, but the field had to bunch back up once again after Zane Smith’s crew lost a tyre on pit road. This led to a Caution and a restart with fewer than five laps remaining.
The leaders all headed down pit road for fresh tyres and fuel, but several others gambled to get stage position. This included Kyle Busch, who won Stage 2.
Joey Logano, Ricky Stenhouse Jnr, Austin Dillon, William Byron, Ross Chastain, and Daniel Suarez all stayed out as well. Hamlin, however, lost several positions with a slow pit stop.
This gamble paid off for Busch and Logano as they remained firmly entrenched in the top five for the rest of the race. The other drivers fell further back in the field while dealing with cars that weren’t performing as they needed.
As a road course race, there weren’t the natural Cautions of a standard oval. The first was for Smith’s uncontrolled tyre while the second was for Hamlin clipping the wall in Turn 12 and then spinning on the front stretch. This shuffled the field once again and led to a final pit stop.
The leaders headed down pit road while Elliott, Tyler Reddick, and Ryan Blaney gambled on older tyres. This paid off for Elliott, who finished fifth in his best finish since a runner-up at Auto Club Speedway in February.
A flat tyre disrupted Reddick’s day and sent him down pit road while Blaney lost several positions before getting spun twice in the final run to the chequered flag.
Get the latest NASCAR news, stats, and US racing coverage at Speedcafe US
Discussion about this post