Shane van Gisbergen continues his NASCAR road course dominance with Sonoma win
The 36-year-old native of New Zealand added to his impressive and growing resume with a close victory in the SaveMart 350 at Sonoma Raceway on Sunday.
In doing so van Gisbergen joined an elite group.
He became the first driver since Vallejo native Jeff Gordon — NASCAR's winningest road course racer (nine victories, five of which came at Sonoma) — to win on three road courses from the pole position in the same season. Van Gisbergen's victory was also the fourth of his career in 34 races, the quickest a Cup Series driver has won four times since Parnelli Jones in 1967.
All of this came one week after van Gisbergen swept the Chicago Street Race and cemented his spot as the current top road course driver in the country.
'You just have to appreciate the run we've had,' van Gisbergen said following his third victory in five weeks. 'For us it was a tough start to the year. We've gotten better and better. As a team it's such a cool atmosphere to be a part of.'
Much like he did June 15 when he won the inaugural Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez race in Mexico City, van Gisbergen dominated Sunday and held big leads most of the afternoon.
He won by more than 16 seconds in Mexico. It was much closer in Sonoma.
Three drivers led in the final stage. There were four restarts over the last 11 laps, allowing the field to close the gap on van Gisbergen, who chose to stay on the course when many of the top contenders pitted and got new tires.
That made for a wild final five laps.
Chase Briscoe got the jump on van Gisbergen on a restart with five laps left, and Chase Elliott — running on fresh tires — was quickly working his way toward the front before the leader patiently worked his way around the final two laps to secure the win.
'I knew Chase wasn't going to do anything stupid, but he got really close at Turn 2 a couple of times,' van Gisbergen said. 'He had a proper crack, it was cool racing him.'
Briscoe finished second. Elliott, Michael McDowell and Christopher Bell rounded out the top five.
Briscoe, who called Sonoma his toughest track to race, said van Gisbergen's dominance on road courses has been impressive.
'I never played basketball against Michael Jordan when he was in his prime, but I feel like that's what it was probably like,' Briscoe said. 'That guy's just unbelievable on road courses, he's just so good. He's really raised the bar on this entire series.'
Series Cup points leader William Byron finished eighth while defending race champion Kyle Larson wound up 35th.
Van Gisbergen, who is 26th in the standings, is tied with Larson, Denny Hamlin and Bell with three wins apiece this season.
'He's something NASCAR's never seen on road courses,' van Gisbergen's crew chief Stephen Doran said. 'This team has done a great job building from the beginning of the year 'til now to get to the point where we can do this, dominate these races.'
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