Van Gisbergen beats Briscoe to win Sonoma thriller

A week on from his devastating crash, the Trackhouse Racing driver controlled the majority of the contest en route to victory at the rural California course.

It wasn’t without its issues, however. Van Gisbergen bemoaned a bad handling Chevrolet Camaro. Nevertheless, the New Zealander had enough to clinch the win over Chase Briscoe in the #19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry.

It takes him to equal-second on the all-time road course wins list, tied with Tony Stewart on eight. Only Jeff Gordon sits ahead of them on nine.

“What a day,” said van Gisbergen.

“We were really bad yesterday and these guys did an amazing job turning this car into a winner.

“The #19 was coming. He was really, really good and I ran out at the end.

“Thank you to Red Bull, Trackhouse, Chevy. Pretty special to make up for last week too.

“We had these shit-boxes come out in front, they were wobbling all over the track and putting up dust. I just kept struggling.

“Chase (Briscoe) was just really, really good. Couple more laps, we would have had some problems.”

Van Gisbergen said the win went some way to making up for the San Diego horror show.

“I was certainly pissed at the start of the week, but this well and truly makes up for it,” he said.

“Sharing it with these guys, they went through it at the start of the week. Pretty special to win.”

From the outside of row one, Ty Gibbs looked like he got the holeshot into Turn 1 over Carson Hocevar until the Spire Motorsports driver ran around the outside his Joe Gibbs Racing rival at Turn 2.

Hocevar’s lead was short-lived, however. Gibbs got back through at Turn 7 to lead the first lap.

Michael McDowell usurped teammate Hocevar into the hairpin to run second at the end of Lap 1, while Kyle Larson and Shane van Gisbergen completed the top five.

Hocevar continued to slip back, losing places to Larson and van Gisbergen on Lap 2.

Van Gisbergen made more headway on Lap 5, going to the inside of Larson at Turn 7 and set about bridging the two-second gap to Gibbs and McDowell.

By Lap 13, van Gisbergen got to the rear bumper of McDowell and slipped up the inside as they crossed the start-finish line to begin Lap 14.

Instead of taking second place stage points, van Gisbergen pitted at the end of Stage 1 with three laps to go.

Gibbs won the stage ahead of Christopher Bell, McDowell, Hocevar, Ryan Preece, and Alex Bowman. Van Gisbergen was seventh as the first of those drivers to pit before the stage’s end.

Van Gisbergen cycled to the lead of the race under the caution ahead of Larson, Chase Briscoe and Denny Hamlin. After pitting, Gibbs was 21st.

There were dramas on pit lane as championship leader Tyler Reddick pulled the #45 23XI Racing Camry to a stop with a suspected power steering issue. He finished four laps down.

On the Lap 30 restart, van Gisbergen cleared Larson and began to build a margin. Larson couldn’t keep up with SVG and instead began to lose spots while Chase Briscoe, Ryan Blaney, and Connor Zilisch surged forward.

Again, with three laps to go in Stage 2, van Gisbergen surrendered maximum stage points and elected to pit with a 10-second gap back to Blaney.

Gibbs inherited the lead and the Stage 2 win ahead of Christopher Bell and AJ Allmendinger. Again, van Gisbergen was seventh.

Van Gisbergen and Zilisch lined up first and second for the start of Stage 3 on Lap 60 once pit stops were completed.

It was a short green flag run, though. On Lap 61, Austin Cindric in the #2 Team Penske Mustang collided with Josh Berry and spun the #21 Wood Brothers Racing Mustang. Debris from the clash brought out the only incident-induced caution of the day.

Van Gisbergen led the Lap 64 restart. A bad restart by Zilisch allowed Briscoe to snag second place.

After Reddick’s earlier dramas, fellow title contender Hamlin found himself in strife when he got tipped into a spin at Turn 7, taking him out of seventh.

Van Gisbergen built a two-second margin over Briscoe and Zilisch, who both pitted for the final time on Lap 82.

Zilisch lost time in the pits as he stalled, which cost him several seconds to Briscoe.

Van Gisbergen responded a lap later to avoid an undercut and returned to the race ahead of them.

Once pit stops were completed, van Gisbergen resumed the lead on Lap 89 with a 1.6-second lead over Briscoe. Zilisch was third, but 4.7 seconds adrift.

A two-horse race for the win was soon established between van Gisbergen and Briscoe.

Van Gisbergen took the white flag with a lead of less than a second. Try as he might, Briscoe couldn’t quite get to the back of van Gisbergen and had to settle for second.

The NASCAR Cup Series continues on July 6 at Chicagoland Speedway.

Results: NASCAR Cup Series Toyota/Save Mart 350, Sonoma Raceway