Van Gisbergen’s latest triumph wasn’t a repeat of the controlled performance from the same time a year earlier, in which he also defeated Joe Gibbs Racing driver Chase Briscoe.
This year, the Kiwi looked vulnerable.
While there were some suggestions that perhaps NASCAR’s best Cup Series drivers had finally bridged the gap to van Gisbergen, the reality was the Kiwi had been battling.
“We had speed in the wrong places for tyre life,” van Gisbergen explained on the Dale Jr Download.
“We were really fast through the esses. We had so much front grip through there but I would kill the tyres in the slow speed.
“The Gibbs cars were unreal. They had really good straight drive but we had better braking and turning, so it was a bit of a battle.
“I would definitely have swapped some of that for some rear grip like they had.”
Anyone keyed into van Gisbergen’s radio would have heard the constant complaints to his crew chief Stephen Doran.
While happy to come away with the win, Doran was well aware they had regressed year-on-year.
“Thank God we have him or we wouldn’t be here right now,” Doran said in the post-race press conference.
“We did a lot of work overnight trying to get it better. I’m still really not sure what it was that he didn’t like about it, but he honestly hated the car all weekend.
“I would say it was slightly better today, but still not great. Not as good as it was last year.”
At a time when Trackhouse Racing’s road course package isn’t perfect, it’s surely a worry for van Gisbergen as an eight-race oval stretch looms before the Chase.
Trackhouse Racing boss Justin Marks admitted his team did not prepare a good enough car for van Gisbergen despite the win.
Marks said there needed to be some introspection.
“Personally, it felt a little bit different after the race than I did after some of his wins because we know how good he is and know what he’s capable of,” said Marks, speaking to SiriusXM.
“We just didn’t bring as good of a race car as we should have to the race track.
“It’s great to win the race but at the same time, you don’t want your driver complaining all weekend and going ‘I’m losing rear grip quicker than I need to’.
“There were issues with the race car, for sure – as there were for the #88 and the #1 car too.
“It’s one of those things where you’re celebrating, you’re happy that you’ve won, but then there’s also this element of we could have done a better job preparing for that race.
“We could have done a better job looking at the data and building the car for Sonoma.
“Winning is great, but you don’t want to be playing defence when you win the races, you want to be on offence.
“He’s typically a winner that is on offence at the end and gaps the field and goes and shows what he can do.
“You don’t want to be in a position where you’re crossing your fingers and holding your breath praying for there to be no caution, praying that lapped cars don’t get in the way.
“That’s a tough spot to be in, so we need to do a better job giving him race cars where he can be on offence right to the chequered flag.”
Two-time champion Joey Logano said van Gisbergen carried Trackhouse to the win.
“He’s just better. There’s just no way around it,” said Logano on Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour.
“He took a car that I don’t know if it was the winning car. I think that was the example of strapping a team on your back and carrying them.
“No disrespect at all, he’s had cars that are obviously great and he wins by 15 seconds.
“That’s almost what we expect when he’s got a car that’s good, but when he barely wins the race, it’s like, ‘Man, that thing must have been a struggle for him’.
“That’s the expectation of how good he is on road courses. He’s lightyears ahead of everyone. He’s able to pace the field and then annihilates everybody when it’s game time.
“He didnt’t quite annihilate everyone [on Sunday]. Everyone’s catching him from a car perspective, maybe some of the drivers are also getting better.
“He’s pushed us all to raise our game for sure. I still expect him to just drive away as we try to inch up on him.”
Like Logano, Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin said the New Zealander’s rivals are beginning to learn what makes the #97 so good.
“I started within a row of him, which was fantastic because I could watch a little bit. He still looked rather impressive to me,” said Hamlin on Actions Detrimental.
“Was it the big gap over the field that we’ve seen at other tracks? No. But I think what the field is starting to figure out is his approach to speed in certain corners.
“I think that’s where he’ll struggle to maintain the big advantage that he has over the field.
“When I watch him approach 11 corners at Sonoma, there are a few where it’s like ‘Wow, I never thought to approach that corner that way’. The field sees that and eventually they close it.”
There are no more road course races on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule in 2026.
Van Gisbergen will continue his program at Chicagoland on July 6.
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