SONOMA, Calif. (AP) — Shane van Gisbergen became the winningest active NASCAR Cup Series driver on road and street courses, dominating at Sonoma Raceway for the second consecutive year.
The Trackhouse Racing driver earned his second win this season on Sunday and the eighth of his career on the tracks that require left and right turns, breaking a tie with Chase Elliott. Four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon is the all-time leader with nine road course
victories in NASCAR’s premier series, and van Gisbergen is tied with three-time champion Tony Stewart for second.
Working his way through the field after starting sixth in his No. 97 Chevrolet, van Gisbergen led 74 of the final 83 laps on the 1.99-mile road course north of San Francisco.
Chase Briscoe made a charge in the closing laps but came up 0.357 seconds behind in second, his second consecutive runner-up showing at Sonoma.
Pole-sitter Ty Gibbs, Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell rounded out the top five.
For the second year in a row, the top seed was knocked off in the opening race of the In-Season Challenge, the bracket-style tournament that pits 32 drivers head to head with the top finisher advancing.
Tyler Reddick finished four laps down in 36th because of a power steering problem. That turned his first-round matchup into a walkover for 10th-place finisher Alex Bowman, who nabbed the 32nd and final seed in the In-Season Challenge despite missing four races with vertigo.
Second-seeded Denny Hamlin advanced despite a 26th-place finish, avenging a first-round upset by Ty Dillon last year.
In a rematch, Dillon was ahead of Hamlin for most of Sunday’s race until he lost power steering with 15 laps remaining and fell to 35th.
Hamlin was spun from seventh on a restart with 46 laps remaining after being punted by Carson Hocevar.
NASCAR will return to Chicagoland Speedway for the first time in seven years with a 400-mile race on July 5. In the most recent Cup race on the 1.5-mile oval in Joliet, Illinois, Alex Bowman earned his first victory in NASCAR’s premier series by beating future teammate Kyle Larson on June 30, 2019.
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