Shane van Gisbergen extended his winning streak to two straight and three victories in the last five weeks with yet another dominating run on a road course.
The New Zealander once again showed he’s in a completely different class on road and street courses than his rivals as he led 97 of 110 laps on Sunday to win from pole at Sonoma Raceway. All three of his wins this year have been from pole — which tied him with Jeff Gordon for a NASCAR record of three consecutive road course victories from the top starting spot. Gordon did it between the 1998 and 1999 seasons.
Victory number four for van Gisbergen — who stunned NASCAR in 2023 when he popped into the debut Chicago street course race from Australian V8 Supercars and won — seemed a given before teams even arrived at the picturesque course in California wine country. His rivals have lamented that “SVG” has a unique braking technique he mastered Down Under that none of them — all oval specialists — can ever learn.
That win in Chicago two years ago led van Gisbergen to move to the United States for a career change, driving stock cars for Trackhouse Racing. He and Ross Chastain have pumped energy into the team over this summer stretch, with Chastain kicking it off with a Memorial Day weekend victory at the Coca-Cola 600.
Van Gisbergen is the fastest driver to win four Cup Series races since Parnelli Jones in 1969.
The Sonoma win made it four victories for Trackhouse in eight weeks. Van Gisbergen was second from pole in Saturday’s Xfinity Series race.
Although he dominated again on Sunday, van Gisbergen pitted from the lead with 27 laps remaining and then had to drive his way back to the front. He got it with a pass of Michael McDowell with 19 laps remaining, but two late cautions made van Gisbergen win restarts to close out the victory in his Chevrolet.
Chase Briscoe was second in a Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing and was followed by Chase Elliott in a Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. McDowell in a Chevy for Spire Motorsports was fourth and Christopher Bell in a Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing was fifth.
Reporting by The Associated Press.
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