Van Gisbergen’s points pay day ‘makes up’ for San Diego

Van Gisbergen collected 63 points, which included eight bonus points for back-to-back seventh place finishes in Stage 1 and Stage 2.

The result moved van Gisbergen above the cut-off line to make the Chase.

Van Gisbergen has yo-yoed above and below the benchmark this season, though the latest needed result is a much-needed one after his DNF in San Diego.

“I was pretty pissed for a couple of days and then switched my attention to this race and we did pretty well all weekend,” said van Gisbergen.

“To get both races certainly makes up for it a little bit.

“We missed a lot of points last week, so great to get some back this one.”

Among the moves and shakers from Sonoma was RFK Racing driver Ryan Preece, who gained one place to 15th.

Team Penske’s Austin Cindric is precariously placed on the bubble in 16th as the last driver above the cut-off, losing one place between San Diego and Sonoma.

The biggest loser out of Sonoma was Erik Jones. The Legacy Motor Club driver dropped three positions to 17th after finishing 23rd.

NASCAR Cup Series points after Sonoma Raceway

At the pointy end, just one point splits the top two. Although Toyota duo Denny Hamlin and Tyler Reddick didn’t have much to write home about, their lowly finishes reshaped the pecking order.

Hamlin, who finished 26th, has moved into the lead over Reddick.

The driver of the #11 Joe Gibbs Racing Camry bemoaned an incident with Spire Motorsports’ Carson Hocevar that wound up with Hamlin facing the wrong way at Turn 7.

“I had a really fast car, a top-five car on speed,” said Hamlin.

“I didn’t have great restarts. I gave up a couple in the first, about one after that, and then just got spun there.

“Once we got spun, somebody hit the nose and knocked the splitter off, so it just lost all the downforce. Struggled to run where we’re at.”

Driving the #23 23XI Racing Camry, Reddick suffered an issue with his Camry that meant he wound up four laps down.

Reddick said he had an “odd issue” with his steering.

“Just really notchy power steering going in and out like it was getting bound up,” said Reddick.

“So I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know if we had a wheel issue or what it was at first, but all the wheels were good.

“It was just really, really hard to make any kind of lap time with it. So I think it’s so hard to say in hindsight if we made the right decision or not to work on it.

“I definitely don’t think I would have been within seconds of the pace, so I think either way, we had a difficult road ahead.

“I do feel good that it was nice that we did decide to pit there, work on it, so we were able to get the Xfinity fastest lap out of the day at least. So that was the tough thing.

“We still continued to fight a little bit of a power steering issue in our Toyota Camry, but it was kind of bittersweet

“We were able to get the fastest lap and have that kind of speed, even though we were having slight steering issues to finish the race out.

“I’d say we got pretty fortunate today. (Hamlin) was running really, really good. So all things considered, for the issues that we had, we were very fortunate to really only lose nine points on the day or eight points on the day to Denny.

“Finishing dead last so it is what it is. We’ll take it. We’ll move on, and we’ll do everything we can at Chicagoland to get back to the lead.”

The NASCAR Cup Series continues at Chicagoland on July 6.