Shane van Gisbergen again dominated at a road course in the NASCAR Cup Series.
He led 92 laps en route to a 0.8-second victory over Chase Briscoe following a handful of late restarts in the Toyota/Save Mart 350 on July 13 at Sonoma Raceway in California.
The victory was van Gisbergen’s third of the season, tying him with Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell and Kyle Larson for the series lead this year.
Next week, the Cup Series field will be happy to be back at an oval at Dover Motor Speedway in Delaware. Well, everyone but van Gisbergen.
Here are the winners and losers from the NASCAR Sonoma race on July 13:
NASCAR Sonoma winners and losers: Shane van Gisbergen dominates
Kyle Busch went into the Sonoma race weekend 46 points off the playoff cutline and managed a good points day with a 10th-place finish. It was not easy.
Busch struggled early, managed a good chunk of stage points in Stage 2 via pit strategy, but fell back outside the top 30 with a spin on Lap 76. Still, the No. 8 Chevrolet was running significantly better later in the race and benefited from the bunching of the field and new tires due to the late-race cautions.
He drove into 10th on the final laps, cutting into the margin behind Bubba Wallace to 37 points. It’ll take a consistent effort in the final six races, but Busch is within range to make the playoffs on points. I’m sure he’d prefer a win, but until then . . .
Shane van Gisbergen’s playoff points total is up to 17 following Sunday’s race win plus a Stage 2 victory. Only Larson and Hamlin have more points with six races to go in the regular season.
Van Gisbergen right now has double-digit playoff point buffers ahead of drivers like Tyler Reddick (one playoff point earned), Ross Chastain (six playoff points earned) and Chris Buescher (minus-4 playoff points following a penalty earlier this season).
Van Gisbergen is currently the No. 3 seed, though that is likely to move around once the final regular-season standings are set later this summer at Daytona. But he can add more points in a few weeks’ time at Watkins Glen in New York.
Honorable mention: We don’t always do a special mention, but Spire Motorsports deserves one after Michael McDowell drove up to fourth place on new tires. And Justin Haley earned a point with the fastest lap of the race.
Before a caution for Cody Ware with 14 laps to go, RFK Racing was poised to have all three cars inside the top 10.
But the trio suffered late in restarts in varying ways. Ryan Preece suffered damage on a physical restart incident with Noah Gragson, though he did manage a 12th-place finish. Still, Preece remains below the cutoff line, three points behind Bubba Wallace.
Brad Keselowski never quite got going on newer tires at the end like peers Chase Elliott and McDowell, finishing 11th despite having very good long-run speed.
But the big impact was to Buescher, who restarted in the top five on the final segment but fell to 16th on older tires. He could have pushed van Gisbergen or Briscoe if all things had been equal, but he wasn’t able to utilize the opportunity late.
The driver of the No. 17 Ford lost a chunk of points, though he remains 34 points ahead of the cutline and hopped over Alex Bowman in the playoff picture.
Larson had a long day and a poor ending at a track he won at last season.
He struggled outside the top 20 throughout the first half of the race, attempted to steal a playoff point in Stage 2, was passed by van Gisbergen on the final lap for the lead, then crashed with four laps to go toward the back of the field after contact with John Hunter Nemechek.
Larson was credited with a 35th-place finish, his third outside the top 30 since Charlotte. He led the regular-season points standings heading into that race weekend and is now 44 points behind leader William Byron.
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