Toyota / Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway (⏰ Sunday, 3:30 p.m. ET | 📺 FOX, FOX Sports App | 📻 PRN, SiriusXM)
Everything you need to know for Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race in California, the 16th points-paying race of the 2023 Cup Series campaign.
Weekend schedule | TV schedule | Weather tracker | Sonoma 101
📍 Location: Sonoma, California 📐 Track length: 1.99 miles 🎟️ Buy tickets: Find weekend passes, seats for the race 💰 Cup Series race purse: $8,054,721 📏 Race distance: 218.9 miles | 110 laps 🔢 Stages: 25 | 55 | 110 (Note: there will be no actual "stage breaks"; points are awarded at each lap marker noted) -- 🚪 Entry list: Cup Series drivers entered 📋 Starting lineup: Denny Hamlin on pole | Full recap 🚗 Pit stall assignments: See where drivers will pit 🏆 Most recent winner: Daniel Suárez | No. 99 driver re-watches, reacts to win Key things to watch 🔑 Top story line CHASE ELLIOTT'S RETURN, PART DEUX. For the second time in the past several weeks, Elliott will make his return to the Cup Series after being sidelined -- albeit for very different reasons than his injury earlier this season. NASCAR's most popular driver was suspended for the race at St. Louis, but will strap back in Sunday as he aims to put a rocky start to 2023 in his rearview and focus on the road ahead. The path forward isn't a simple one, however, as Elliott's seven races missed thus far have him buried just inside the top 30 in points and in likely must-win territory in order to make the playoffs. The good news for him? He has a shot to win at any of the remaining regular-season tracks, and Sunday marks just as good a spot for him as any. Though he's yet to win at Sonoma, Elliott's seven road-course wins are just shy of a pair of Hall of Famers (Jeff Gordon, 9; Tony Stewart, 8) and it's wildly unlikely that he won't someday -- perhaps even by the end of this season -- be atop that list at some point. His average finish of 8.16 on road courses is by far the best among active drivers as well (Tyler Reddick is second at 12.19) and there's no better way for Elliott to officially stamp his mark on the 2023 season and re-announce his reign as road-course king than with a win out West. ICYMI: Elliott moves on, aims for rhythm in return | Hendrick accepts suspension, comments on aggressive driving History tells us... ROAD COURSES ARE A YOUNG MAN'S GAME (LATELY). Somewhat remarkably, drivers 30 years old and younger have won 17 of the past 18 road-course races, and the one who wasn't may not be the driver you're thinking of. It was not that long ago that the aforementioned Elliott seemed to be battling Martin Truex Jr. -- the second-oldest full-timer in the series -- for every road-course trophy. The one outlier in the past 18 races has been AJ Allmendinger, however, with Truex struggling to contend for road-course wins the past few years. It's an interesting phenomenon to observe, the more you think about it. Driving styles have unquestionably gotten more aggressive over the years, and as more and more road courses are added to the schedule it seems that the line of what is acceptable keeps getting pushed farther out there. For so long there were just two static road courses on the schedule, with the sport's current longtime mainstays taking cues from their elders who only raced during this era that saw a very specific style of road-racing decorum. A new and unwritten driver code appears to be in store these days, however, and the old guard has yet to fully embrace it. Keep this in mind if any of the Truex/Allmendinger/Kevin Harvick/Denny Hamlin/Kyle Busch contingent finds themselves racing for the win against, say, a young, hungry and aggressive driver who won on a road course last year at Circuit of The Americas. Just spitballing here. 🔍 FULL ANALYSIS: He may not be the betting favorite to win, but watch out for... CHRIS BUESCHER. Last year's top three at Sonoma -- Daniel Suárez, Chris Buescher and Michael McDowell, respectively -- all nabbed their best-ever finishes at the track, and honestly any of the three of them fit the mold here. It's Buescher, specifically, that I have my eye on, however. His Cup wins have come few and far between -- one in 2016, one last year in the Bristol Night Race -- but it should not surprise you if he winds up in Victory Lane on Sunday. The extremely underrated road racer has finished in the top 10 in the last six road-course races -- the longest active streak in the series, and the longest any driver has put together since Busch's eight straight from 2015-18. In the list of best average road-course finish among active drivers, Buescher's 14.81 ranks ninth overall (in a strong sample size of 27 races), with the eight drivers above him combining for six Cup Series championships. In his last eight starts alone he's averaged a stellar 8.13 finish, with seven of his eight total road-course top 10s coming in them. RFK Racing has been a team clearly on the rise in 2023 and Buescher is clearly due. Saturday's sessions As expected, recent road-course dominator Tyler Reddick was fast when it counted — but unexpectedly, his 23XI Racing boss and Toyota stablemate over at Joe Gibbs Racing, Denny Hamlin, edged him out in the final seconds of qualifying for his first career Sonoma pole. Given their recent road-course acumens, it still feels more likely Reddick goes out and wins Sunday, but the pole — Hamlin's first on a road course since 2018 — may add a further spark to a No. 11 team that had already been showing recent speed. Perhaps this is an indicator of what's to come over the summer with this group. Also, notably, Kyle Larson was off in qualifying after leading practice and looking like the man to beat all weekend to that point. He'll start 16th in search of his first Sonoma win.