How Shane van Gisbergen won another NASCAR road race at Sonoma

Shane van Gisbergen is a cheat code at road courses. Already having won the last two road races at Mexico City and Chicago, he added a third win for the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season on Sunday at Sonoma Raceway in dominant fashion.

After narrowly losing in the Xfinity Series race on Saturday, van Gisbergen entered the Toyota/Save Mart 350 with a vengeance. He started on the pole and went on to lead 97 of 110 laps, five more than the previous Sonoma track record of 92 set by Jeff Gordon in 2004. The 97 laps were also the most in a Cup Series road race since Cale Yarborough led 102 of 119 in the 1977 Winston Western 500 at Riverside.

Whereas Yarborough did not win the Riverside event because he spun with 15 laps left, van Gisbergen was on a rail. He led the final 20 laps virtually unopposed save for a brief moment under caution for Ricky Stenhouse Jr., where Chase Briscoe led instead. Van Gisbergen easily pulled past Briscoe on the final restart with four laps to go and drove off to the win. The victory is also the first for Red Bull as a primary sponsor in the Cup Series since Kasey Kahne won the 2011 Kobalt Tools 500 for Team Red Bull nearly five thousand days ago.

“I never played basketball against Michael Jordan in his prime, but I feel like that’s what it was probably like,” quipped Briscoe. “That guy is just unbelievable on road courses. He’s raised the bar for this entire series.”

As his third win of the season, van Gisbergen is now tied with Christopher Bell, Denny Hamlin, and Kyle Larson for the most victories in 2025. Despite sitting a paltry 26th in points while the other three are top five, playoff seeding means he will be among the top drivers going into the postseason in September.

With one more road course in the regular season at Watkins Glen (where he narrowly lost in 2024 because of a rare mistake), he could very well enter the playoffs with four victories. While his chances of making a deep playoff run are low on paper, his gradual improvement on ovals could make him a dark horse.

More from the Azerbaijan GP

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Fastest lap Fastest Lap

Driver of the Day Driver of the Day

“I felt like I was getting better as a driver, getting closer to my team-mates and starting to match what they were doing,” van Gisbergen commented. “You could just feel that we were better than what we were. It just had to click.

“The last month and a half, two months, we’ve really started getting better: the #88 car and then also the team as well, we’ve started getting better and better. It’s four wins for us now as a team, and it’s been an amazing turnaround for everyone.

“I’m not under any illusion we’re going to go out next week and win, but I’d like to keep that progression going and keep starting to build towards the midfield and then the top half of it.”

Ty Dillon’s In-Season Challenge continues

Raise your hand if you had Ty Dillon making the NASCAR In-Season Challenge semi-finals. Lower your hand, you liar.

Despite being outside the top 30 in points, Dillon has had an improbable run in the midseason knockout tourney. He finished higher than top-seeded Denny Hamlin at Atlanta before placing ahead of 17th-seed Brad Keselowski in Chicago. This set up a battle with Alex Bowman for Sonoma in the Round of 8.

Although Bowman races for the premier Hendrick Motorsports, Sonoma is one of his weaker tracks with just two top tens and never finishing higher than ninth. A nondescript day for Bowman despite qualifying ninth and a slight above-average outing for Dillon enabled the latter to catch up to his opponent on the final lap. He made his move in the hairpin to push Bowman aside and take 17th, finishing two spots ahead and continuing his Cinderella story.

The Round of 8 results were as follows:

• #6 Ty Gibbs (finished seventh) defeated #14 Zane Smith (27th)
• #12 John Hunter Nemechek (28th) defeated #20 Erik Jones (29th)
• #23 Tyler Reddick (sixth) defeated #15 Ryan Preece (12th)
• #32 Ty Dillon (17th) defeated #8 Alex Bowman (19th)

Sonoma will whittle the tournament to four for Dover, followed by a one-on-one at Indianapolis.

• #6 Ty Gibbs vs. #23 Tyler Reddick
• #12 John Hunter Nemechek vs. #32 Ty Dillon

NASCAR 2025 Toyota/Save Mart 350 – Results