Today was a statement from Shane van Gisbergen. His third win, second in a row, and he even threw in a stage win. Chase Briscoe praised SVG in his post-race comments. He went as far as to compare his NASCAR competitor to the GOAT, Michael Jordan.

Today, there was nothing that the field could do about Shane van Gisbergen. Chase Briscoe did his best and finished P2. He even got physical with SVG on the last restart. There was nothing to throw him off of his game today at Sonoma.

The Toyota/Save Mart 350 was led pretty much start to finish by SVG. Briscoe probably had the best response to the 88 today. After the race, he had nothing but praise for the Trackhouse driver.

“Yeah, I mean, for sure, the, really the only opportunity I had was on the restarts. I obviously never played basketball against Michael Jordan in his prime, but I feel like that’s what it was probably like,” Briscoe said of Shane van Gisbergen. “Yeah, that guy’s just unbelievable on road courses. Just so good. He’s really raised the bar of this entire series. Yeah, proud of the effort. I thought there was one restart I was maybe gonna get clear of him, but I mean, truthfully, he was probably gonna pass me back by the end of the lap.

“But yeah, proud of the effort. We were, you know, second-place car all day and obviously ended up second with it. So, yeah, just, man, I honestly don’t know what more I need. I feel like my car is extremely good and I feel like every time I would kind of run down Shane, he would just pick up the pace himself and start driving back away. So, yeah, it was frustrating at times, but I was honestly happy with the effort. This is by far my worst race track. So, kind of surprised myself, truthfully.”

Chase Briscoe has been having a career-best season. The thing is, he hasn’t even reached his full potential in this No. 19 car yet. He could be a driver who gets comfortable at the right time and takes off in the playoffs. While he couldn’t run down Shane van Gisbergen today, he was the next best in the bunch. That says a lot.

This is the sixth top-five finish for Briscoe. He moves up to 8th in points overall. Joe Gibbs Racing signed Briscoe for a reason. So far this season, he has shown that at times. Even if he couldn’t shake SVG and get to the lead, he showed that he is capable of winning a road course race.

One of these days, SVG is going to have a bad car, have a pit road penalty, or any other issue. Then who will step up? It could be Chase Briscoe.