Rookie Shane van Gisbergen’s dominance on road and street course events in the 2025 summer stretch continued Sunday afternoon. He scored a dominant NASCAR Cup Series victory in the Toyota/SaveMart 350 at Sonoma Raceway on Sunday, July 13, from pole position.

The three-time Supercars champion from Auckland, New Zealand, led six times for a race-high 97 of 110 scheduled laps. He dominated the event’s first two stage periods. He sacrificed the first stage victory to pit his entry strategically. This enabled him to cycle back out with the lead for the start of the second stage period. Van Gisbergen mirrored his move before the conclusion of the latter stage. He overtook Kyle Larson on the stage’s final lap and claimed the stage victory.

He continued his dominance, enduring four restarts throughout the final stage period and sharing the front row with Chase Briscoe. However, van Gisbergen managed to fend off Briscoe through all of the restarts. This included the final restart with four laps remaining. Van Gisbergen smoothly navigated Sonoma’s 12-turn circuit for four laps, cruising to an unprecedented third Cup Series victory of the 2025 season.

On-track qualifying determined the starting lineup on Saturday, July 12. Rookie Shane van Gisbergen notched his fourth Cup Series career pole position with a 96.040 mph lap in 74.594 seconds. He shared the front row with Chase Briscoe, who clocked in a qualifying lap at 95.719 mph in 74.844 seconds.

When the green flag waved and the event commenced, pole-sitter Shane van Gisbergen wasted no time. He rocketed his No. 88 Red Bull Chevrolet entry ahead of Chase Briscoe, William Byron and the field through the first turn and the uphill climb to Turn 2. With select competitors racing at the rear of the field kicked up dirt on the racing surface while navigating through the second turn, van Gisbergen maintained a steady lead from Turns 3, the backstretch chicane from Turns 4a to 7, the Esses that started from Turns 8 to 10 and a sharp right-hand turn from Turn 11. Once he navigated past Turn 12, he led the first lap.

Over the next four laps, van Gisbergen extended his early advantage to eight-tenths of a second. Both Byron and Ross Chastain overtook Briscoe to move up to second and third, respectively, on the leaderboard. AJ Allmendinger followed suit in fifth place. Van Gisbergen extended his lead to more than a second and lead to the Lap 10 mark.

Through the first 15 scheduled laps, van Gisbergen continued to stretch his early advantage. His lead stood at more than two seconds over Byron. Briscoe, Christopher Bell and Ryan Blaney trailed in the top five. Chastain fended off Allmendinger for sixth place as Ty Gibbs, Tyler Reddick and Chase Elliott occupied the remaining top-10 spots. Behind, Kyle Larson, Michael McDowell, Alex Bowman, Chris Buescher, Ryan Preece, Zane Smith, Daniel Suarez, Brad Keselowski, Austin Cindric and Joey Logano.

Then, on Lap 20, mixed pit strategies within the field ensued. Austin Cindric pitted his No. 2 Discount Tire Ford Mustang Dark Horse entry from 16th place. More drivers, including teammate Blaney, Chris Buescher, Larson and John Hunter Nemechek pitted their respective entries a lap later. They were followed by another wave of competitors that included Bell, Allmendinger, Gibbs, Elliott, Reddick, McDowell, Bowman, Preece, Keselowski, Logano, Daniel Suarez, rookie Riley Herbst and Denny Hamlin pitted during the next lap.

Prior to Lap 23 and before pit road became inaccessible to the field to mark the conclusion of a stage period, van Gisbergen surrendered the lead to pit under green. He was followed by runner-up Byron and third-place Briscoe on pit road. Chastain opted not to pit before the first stage’s conclusion, cycling his No. 1 Kubota Chevrolet entry into the lead.

When the first stage period concluded on Lap 25, Chastain cruised to his first Cup stage victory of the 2025 season. Teammate van Gisbergen, who managed to cycle in second place, retained the spot ahead of Bubba Wallace, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Byron. Ty Dillon, Briscoe, Blaney, Gibbs and Elliott were scored in the top 10, respectively. Meanwhile, Bell, who spun in Turn 2 after he slightly over-drove the turn and made light contact with teammate Briscoe in the process on Lap 24, was mired back in 18th place.

Under the first stage break, some led by Chastain, including those who had not pitted before the first stage’s conclusion, pitted their respective entries. The rest, led by van Gisbergen, remained on the track. Among those who pitted with Chastain included Wallace, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Ty Dillon, Cole Custer, Erik Jones, Austin Dillon, Noah Gragson, Todd Gilliland and Justin Haley.

The second stage period started on Lap 29 as van Gisbergen and Byron occupied the front row. At the start, van Gisbergen fended off Byron through the first three turns to retain the lead. As the field smoothly navigated through the first four turns, Blaney ran over the dirt entering Turn 4a. He got loose amid light contact with Briscoe, niy managed to keep his car racing straight. But he lost three spots in the process. Meanwhile, the field navigated through the rest of the turns smoothly as van Gisbergen led following lap.

The following lap, Allmendinger got loose and spun his No. 16 Big Sipz Chevrolet entry by himself in Turn 2. Shortly after, Nemechek spun his No. 42 Mobil 1 Toyota Camry XSE entry through the Esses just past Turn 7. Nemechek’s incident caused an oncoming bevy of competitors racing in the mid-pack region to scatter and go off the course to avoid Nemchek’s entry. Amid both incidents, the race remained under green flag conditions. Van Gisbergen retained a steady advantage over both Byron and Briscoe by Lap 32.

At the Lap 35 mark, van Gisbergen continued to lead by half a second over Byron. Joe Gibbs Racing’s Ty Gibbs, Briscoe and Bell trailed the lead by as far back as within two seconds. Meanwhile, sixth-place Blaney trailed by two seconds. ahead of Buescher, Elliott, McDowell and Bowman in the top-10 mark. Over the next five laps, Blaney and Bell swapped spots for fifth place and Preece cracked the top 10 in 10th place. Meanwhile, van Gisbergen stabilized his lead to half a second over Byron. Briscoe and Gibbs trailed in third and fourth, respectively.

Just past the Lap 45 mark, van Gisbergen extended his lead to more than two seconds. Behind, the new runner-up competitor, Briscoe, and third-place Blaney pursued and Byron dropped to fourth place in front of Bell. Meanwhile, Suarez, who was racing in 14th place, dropped to 29th place. This occurred after he received a bump and was sent for a spin in Turn 11 by his Trackhouse Racing teammate, Chastain.

With four laps remaining in the second stage period, another cycle of mixed pit strategies within the field ensued. Various drovers. including Bell, McDowell, Reddick, Bowman, Cindric, Zane Smith and Bowman pitted their respective entries under green. More names that included Byron, Buescher, Elliott, Preece, Gibbs, Keselowski, Logano, Herbst and Gilliland pitted during the following lap before the leader van Gisbergen, runner-up Briscoe, third-place Blaney and fourth-place Chastain pitted prior to the final two-lap mark of the second stage period. Amid the pit stops for the front-runners, Larson managed to cycle into the lead ahead of van Gisbergen.

When the second stage period concluded on Lap 55, van Gisbergen, who overtook Larson for the lead on Lap 54 amid contact in Turn 3, notched his second Cup stage victory of the 2025 season. Larson settled in second ahead of Kyle Busch, Wallace and Stenhouse while Briscoe, Ty Dillon, Buescher, Blaney and Byron were scored in the top 10, respectively.

During the stage break, some led by Larson and including Busch, Wallace, Stenhouse, the Dillon brothers, Josh Berry, Noah Gragson, Justin Haley, Erik Jones, Katherine Legge, Allmendinger and Nemechek pitted their respective entries while the rest led by van Gisbergen remained on the track.

With 51 laps remaining, the final stage period commenced as van Gisbergen and Briscoe occupied the front row. At the start, Briscoe mounted a side-by-side challenge on van Gisbergen through the first three turns. But van Gisbergen managed to muscle ahead and clear Briscoe through Turns 3a to 4a.

Despite Noah Gragson spinning into the tire barriers past Turn 3A, the race remained under green flag conditions. The field navigated through the backstretch chicane, the Esses and Turn 11 before returning to the start/finish line area. Van Gisbergen led the following lap.

Then, with 49 laps remaining, the caution returned. Blaney, who was battling Buescher for third place, got bumped by Buescher after Buescher got loose entering the first turn. The contact from Buescher got Blaney loose as he went off the track. Despite missing the wall, Blaney’s No. 12 Menards Ford Mustang Dark Horse entry came to a halt at an incline within the dirt and was unable to pull away. T

his resulted in Blaney losing a lap to the field. Meanwhile, the rest of the field navigated through the second turn while the caution was displayed. Wallace and Hamlin, both of whom were racing in the mid-pack region, spun separately in Turn 2, though both managed to continue without sustaining any significant damage to their respective entries.

The next restart began with 45 laps remaining. Van Gisbergen and Briscoe dueling for the lead through the first two turns. Then, van Gisbergen muscled ahead exiting the second turn. The field fanned out, bumped and jostled for late spots through Turns 3 and 3A, the backstretch chicane and the Esses.

Van Gisbergen started to pull away. Behind, a three-car battle for the runner-up spot, involving Briscoe, Byron and Elliott, ensued entering Turns 10 and 11. With the field navigating through Turn 11 without an incident occurring, van Gisbergen led the next lap. He continued to lead with 40 laps remaining while a variety of on-track battles ensued within the field.

With less than 35 laps remaining, van Gisbergen stabilized his advantage to more than two seconds over Briscoe. Byron, Elliott, Bell, Buescher, Preece, Ty Gibbs, Keselowski and Reddick trailed in the top 10, respectively. By then, Kyle Busch was down in 36th place after he spun in Turn 7 a few laps earlier.

van Gisbergen continued to lead by more than three seconds over Briscoe with 30 laps remaining. During the following lap, select drivers including Buescher, Reddick, Bowman and Logano strategically pitted their respective entries under green. By then, Preece and Nemechek had pitted two laps prior. With 28 laps remaining, more drivers, including Elliott, Keselowski and Allmendinger, pitted under green

Then, with 26 laps remaining, the leader van Gisbergen pitted under green, a lap after the runner-up competitor Briscoe pitted. More drivers, including Byron and Ty Gibbs pitted with van Gisbergen. Bell, who led when van Gisbergen pitted, pitted during the following lap. As Chastain pitted with Bell, Larson cycled into the lead. Van Gisbergen cycled to fourth place behind Carson Hocevar and Michael McDowell.

With 24 laps remaining, the top two competitors that included Larson and Hocevar pitted their respective Chevrolet entries. This allowed McDowell to cycle into the lead and van Gisbergen followed suit in second. Van Gisbergen, however, quickly reeled in and overtook McDowell’s No. 71 Project Zin/Gainbridge Chevrolet entry through Turn 7. And, with 21 laps remaining, reassumed the lead. Van Gisbergen proceeded to extend his lead to more than two seconds with less than 20 laps remaining. McDowell retained second place ahead of Briscoe, Elliott and Buescher, respectively.

Down to the final 15 laps of the event, van Gisbergen stabilized his lead to more than two seconds over the new runner-up competitor, Briscoe. Meanwhile, McDowell was overtaken by both Elliott and Buescher, which left the former mired in fifth place and trailing the lead by more than nine seconds, while Byron, Bell, Keselowski, Ty Gibbs and Cindric occupied the remaining top-10 spots ahead of Preece, Larson, Chastain, Reddick and Bowman, respectively.

Shortly after, the caution flew when the right-rear wheel from Cody Ware’s No. 51 Mighty Fire Breaker Ford Mustang Dark Horse entry rolled off of the car entering Turn 3a. The loose wheel proceeded to both roll and bounce on the course and was dodged by the field before it came to a rest off the track near the entrance of the backstretch chicane. During the caution period, a host of names led by third-place Elliott pitted while the rest led by the leader van Gisbergen and runner-up Briscoe remained on the track. Among those who also remained on the track included Buescher, Byron, Zane Smith, Hocevar, Stenhouse, Berry, Erik Jones, Gragson, Haley and Hamlin.

The start of the next restart with 11 laps remaining did not last a full lap before a series of on-track carnages ensued in Turn 7. Within the carnages, Jones and Gragson separately spun their respective entries, with Gragson sustaining damage after he got hit by Preece while Jones got rear-ended by Larson. At the moment of caution, which caused a majority of the field in the mid-pack region to scatter, van Gisbergen, who had fended off Briscoe at the start of the restart, was leading ahead of Briscoe, Buescher, Bell, Byron, Hocevar, Zane Smith, Berry, Stenhouse and Haley.

Like the previous restart, the following restart with seven laps remaining did not last long when Stenhouse, who was battling for a top-10 spot, was turned amid contact with Gibbs entering the Esses and he bounced off the tire barriers. By then, van Gisbergen, who fended off a late challenge from Briscoe from the start of the restart zone to Turn 3A, retained the lead while Bell, Buescher and Hocevar were scored in the top five ahead of Byron, Zane Smith, Elliott, Berry and McDowell.

During the next restart with four laps remaining, van Gisbergen dueled with Briscoe through the first turn before he bumped Briscoe through Turn 2, which allowed the former to muscle ahead and retain the lead exiting Turn 2. With the field getting stacked up and bumping through every turn, Larson and Blaney wrecked separately in Turn 4a and prior to Turn 7, respectively. Amid both incidents, the race remained under green flag conditions as the field navigated through the Esses before making their way through Turns 10 and 11. At the front, van Gisbergen led the following lap while Briscoe, Bell, Elliott and Byron followed suit in the top five, respectively.

When the white flag waved and the final lap started, van Gisbergen remained in the lead by more than a second over Briscoe while the rest of the field behind continued to bump and jostle for final-lap spots. Amid the battles within the field, van Gisbergen was able to smoothly navigate his way through Sonoma’s turns for a final time before he cycled back through Turn 12 and streaked across the finish line in first place for his third checkered flag of the 2025 Cup Series season.

With the victory, van Gisbergen notched his fourth career win in NASCAR’s premier series, all occurring on either road courses or street courses. The New Zealander also became the first competitor to achieve three consecutive road course victories from pole position since Jeff Gordon achieved the previous feat from 1998-99 and he eclipsed Gordon’s previous record of most laps led by a race winner with his race-high 97 laps led before winning.

Van Gisbergen also became the 22nd competitor overall to win a Cup Series event at Sonoma, the first foreign-born competitor to win at Sonoma since Juan Pablo Montoya won in June 2007 and he piloted a Red Bull-sponsored car to Victory Lane in the Cup Series for the first time since Kasey Kahne won at Phoenix Raceway in November 2011. His third victory of the 2025 season, which is tied with Christopher Bell, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson for the most through 20-scheduled events, was also the ninth of the year for the Chevrolet nameplate and the fourth for Trackhouse Racing.

*Van Gisbergen, who swept both poles and race victories between the Xfinity and Cup Series divisions a week ago at the Chicago Street Course, capped off another successful race weekend in Sonoma, California. In addition to winning the Cup event on Sunday, he notched a strong runner-up result during Saturday’s Xfinity Series event at Sonoma following a late battle with his Trackhouse Racing/JR Motorsports teammate and race winner Connor Zilisch.

“[The racing] was pretty tough stuff,” van Gisbergen said on the frontstretch on TNT. “We had an amazing car. Chase Briscoe, what a great racer. [He] Gave me respect and jumped the last [restart] a little bit, but it was pretty tense. Amazing. So stoked for Red Bull, Trackhouse [Racing], Chevy. Unbelievable. I had a really fun weekend here. Some great races and hope everyone enjoyed that.”

“[It is] Hard to believe that, isn’t it?” van Gisbergen, who was mentioned that he is currently scored as the third-seeded competitor for the 2025 Playoffs, added. “I just have to thank these [No. 88] guys. We’ve built up all year, got better and better, and now we need to keep getting better on the ovals and start proving some people wrong. I had an amazing time in Australia [racing Supercars] and then to come here, the last couple of years has been [a] dream come true. I really enjoyed my time in NASCAR. Thanks everyone for making me feel so welcomed and [I] hope I’m here for a long time to come.”

Chase Briscoe, who finished no higher than 13th through his previous four starts at Sonoma, settled in second place for his seventh top-five result of the 2025 season.

“I never played basketball against [23XI Racing co-owner] Michael Jordan in his prime, but I feel like that’s probably what it was like,” Briscoe said. “[van Gisbergen] is unbelievable on road courses. He’s just so good. He’s really raised the bar on this entire series. I thought there was one restart I was maybe going to get clear of him, but truthfully even if I cleared him, he was probably going to pass me back by the end of the lap. We were a second-place car all day and ended up second with it.”

Chase Elliott finished in third place for his seventh top-five result of the 2025 season while Michael McDowell and Christopher Bell claimed the remaining top-five spots of fourth and fifth, respectively. Tyler Reddick, Ty Gibbs, William Byron, Joey Logano and Kyle Busch completed the top 10 in the final running order.

*Meanwhile, Sonoma, which also hosted the third In-Season Tournament of the year, featured a bevy of late-race drama between the initial group of eight competitors who were still in contention for the million-dollar prize. When the checkered flag flew, the following names that included John Hunter Nemechek, Tyler Reddick, Ty Gibbs and Ty Dillon transferred to the challenge’s fourth and penultimate round after the quartet eliminated Erik Jones, Ryan Preece, Zane Smith and Alex Bowman, respectively.

The Sonoma event featured 12 lead changes for six different leaders. The race featured six cautions for 17 laps. In addition, 33 of 37 starters finished on the lead lap.

Following the 18th event of the 2025 Cup Series season, William Byron leads the regular-season standings by 14 points over teammate Chase Elliott, 44 over teammate Kyle Larson, 53 over Tyler Reddick, 62 over Denny Hamlin and 71 over Christopher Bell.

1. Shane van Gisbergen, 97 laps led, Stage 2 winner

2. Chase Briscoe, two laps led

3. Chase Elliott

4. Michael McDowell, three laps led

5. Christopher Bell, one lap led

6. Tyler Reddick

7. Ty Gibbs

8. William Byron

9. Joey Logano

10. Kyle Busch

11. Brad Keselowski

12. Ryan Preece

13. Josh Berry

14. Daniel Suarez

15. Justin Haley

16. Chris Buescher

17. Ty Dillon

18. AJ Allmendinger

19. Alex Bowman

20. Denny Hamlin

21. Austin Dillon

22. Todd Gilliland

23. Cole Custer

24. Ross Chastain, four laps led, Stage 1 winner

25. Riley Herbst

26. Bubba Wallace

27. Zane Smith

28. John Hunter Nemechek

29. Erik Jones

30. Austin Cindric

31. Katherine Legge

32. Carson Hocevar

33. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

34. Cody Ware, two laps down

35. Kyle Larson, two laps down, three laps led

36. Ryan Blaney – OUT, Accident

37. Noah Gragson – OUT, Accident

Next on the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400 at Dover Motor Speedway for the penultimate In-Season Tournament event of the year. The event is scheduled to occur next Sunday, July 20, and air at 2 p.m. ET on TNT.