12 stats you need to know for Sonoma Raceway

Ahead of Sunday's Toyota/Save Mart 350 (3 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), wine-and-dine on these deep stats before Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series drivers and teams take on the 12-turn, 2.52-mile Sonoma Raceway, courtesy of Racing Insights.

Kyle Larson holds the all-time best average start at Sonoma. In five career starts, the No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing driver has an average of 2.8 – winning the Busch Pole Award the past two trips.

Kurt Busch, Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch each have a four-race top-10 streak at Sonoma, the longest of any active driver. Denny Hamlin is a close second with a three-race run.

Clint Bowyer ranks fourth on the all-time list for most top-five finishes at Sonoma, only behind Jeff Gordon, Ricky Rudd and Rusty Wallace. Bowyer has eight top fives on the road course, including a win in 2012. Bowyer’s top-five results are also a career best among all tracks on the circuit.

Chase Elliott is becoming quite the road-course racer, starting in the top five in the last four races, an average finish of 3.67 on road courses in 2018 (series high) and scored 20 more points than any other driver last season.

In the last two Sonoma races, race winners Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr. sacrificed stage points in the name of pit strategy, stopping for service two laps before the end of each respective stage.

Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney both scored their first road-course victories last season, with Elliott picking up his first career Monster Energy Series win at Watkins Glen, while Blaney won at the Charlotte Roval. Seven of the last 12 road-course events have produced first-time road-course winners.

Kurt Busch, Chase Elliott and Kevin Harvick were the only three drivers in the series to score top-10 finishes in all three road-course races in 2018.

Kyle Busch leads all active drivers with four career road-course victories, with Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Martin Truex Jr. right behind him with three wins.

Hendrick Motorsports holds 16 victories at Sonoma, the most all-time among team organizations. Hendrick has had at least one car finish in the top 10 in each of the last 13 races at Sonoma, along with 28 of the 30 total events the team has competed.

Martin Truex Jr. is the only repeat race winner the past 10 races at Sonoma. Truex comes into the weekend as the defending winner, along with a victory in 2013. Truex was also extremely close to winning all three road-course races in 2018. Truex ran out of fuel while battling Chase Elliott on the white-flag lap to finish second at Watkins Glen. At the Charlotte Roval, he was leading in the final corner when he was spun by Jimmie Johnson.

Winless in his 18 road-course starts, the stats show that Brad Keselowski might prefer Watkins Glen over Sonoma. In nine starts at Sonoma, Keselowski has only one top five, while he holds four top-five finishes at The Glen.

Three drivers hold active streaks of leading a race this season. Brad Keselowski has led eight straight races dating back to Bristol. Chase Elliott has led six consecutive races while teammate William Byron has led laps in the last five.