SONOMA, Calif. — Chase Briscoe nearly defeated road-course king Shane van Gisbergen in the final laps of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Sonoma Raceway, but ultimately settled for runner-up.
With a long 57-lap stint to the finish, it forced drivers to make their final pit stops of the afternoon under green-flag conditions. Briscoe, running second at the time, exited the 1.99-mile racing surface at Lap 81 for four fresh Goodyear tires and fuel. Van Gisbergen followed one lap later.
Despite the time gained in the closing laps and a last-ditch push into Turn 11, Briscoe saw the Kiwi take the checkered flag out the front windshield for the second year in a row at the California road course.
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“Last year, I felt like I never really knew what he had,” Briscoe said. “Today, like 15 or so to go, I was like, ‘Oh, he’s letting me catch him and he’ll just drive away’, and then I realized I was like, man, I’m actually better here, like I could see him struggling. I could tell the last 10 laps, it was everything he had. I just, I made a mistake with like three or four to go getting into Turn 1.
“Just have to be absolutely perfect to beat him, and I wasn’t perfect. I thought I definitely had the superior car. I just didn’t do as good of a job as he did driving.”
As the laps ticked down, Briscoe was encouraged by his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing team to conserve rear tires while van Gisbergen struggled on pace. With four laps to go, Briscoe shaved the deficit down to under a second before missing Turn 1, causing him to lose an additional half second.
Briscoe credited his braking during the final run that gave him a fighting chance to pull off the upset on van Gisbergen.
“I just kept pushing harder and harder and harder,” Briscoe said. “I didn’t feel like I was really that bad under braking, but then at the end I just kept pushing it, like I said, extremely hard. I knew that was the one thing, if I could just try to make him get pressured in, and I honestly kind of baited him into it there on the white flag into (Turn) 7. He kind of missed, and I just unfortunately missed with him.”
But his second consecutive Sonoma runner-up shouldn’t come as a surprise. His crew chief, James Small, has a knack for success in Wine Country.
Combined with Briscoe and the retired Martin Truex Jr., the No. 19 team leader has scored four top-three results in his last six Sonoma events, including a win with Truex in 2023.
While not revealing his secret to success in Northern California, Small credited Briscoe for his growing ability to navigate the course and compete for wins.
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“It’s like training a dog, and it’s just trying to show him that it can be done,” Small told NASCAR.com. “Just repetition and we’ve got the perfect playbook by seeing Shane, who’s honestly one of the best drivers in the world when it comes to managing his stuff. I think if we could have had track position on him there at the end … we had a better long-run car. Credit to Chase for really not going too hard there and managing that whole run.
“It’s frustrating to finish second again here and would have been nice to be back in the winner’s circle.”
Entering the middle of the summer stretch, Briscoe has established some consistency following a rough start to 2026.
Once outside The Chase picture after Watkins Glen, the Indiana native has climbed to 11th across the last six races and has built a 79-point cushion to the cutline.
Briscoe matched his season-best result Sunday (second at EchoPark Speedway in February), but with a goose egg still in the win column for 2026, there will certainly be a bitter taste leaving Wine Country despite nearly conquering the king of the road.
“I think that Shane is one of the greatest road-course drivers in the world,” Briscoe said. “I felt like I was playing one-on-one against Michael Jordan. I didn’t have the lead, but I had every opportunity to beat him, and I blew it.”
