Shane van Gisbergen eyes rebound at Sonoma after San Diego frustration

SONOMA, Calif. – Whenever the NASCAR Cup Series visits a road course, Shane van Gisbergen is the driver everyone expects to beat. A frustrating finish at Naval Base Coronado hasn't changed that outlook heading into this weekend’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway (3:30 p.m. ET, TNT Sports, truTV, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). After winning the pole for Saturday's O'Reilly Auto Parts Series race, van Gisbergen admitted he needed time to decompress over his disappointing 38th-place finish in San Diego. Running third on a Lap 32 restart, the No. 97 Chevrolet became an innocent victim when Austin Hill clipped the inside retaining wall and slammed into fellow Trackhouse Racing driver Connor Zilisch, triggering a wreck that left van Gisbergen with nowhere to escape. Nine cars sustained damage. RELATED: Sonoma weekend schedule | At-track photos “I feel pretty good today,” van Gisbergen quipped in a press conference on Friday at Sonoma. “It took me a couple of days, for sure. Pretty pissed about that with a good opportunity gone wasted. “The best thing about the sport is it either brings you back down to earth pretty quickly or picks you back up. You can race the next weekend and reset. Feel pretty reset today.” Scoring a single point in San Diego – at a track where many expected van Gisbergen to maximize his points haul – proved costly. He fell three spots to 17th in the Chase standings and lost 15 points against the cutline. Entering Sonoma, the seven-time road-course winner sits five points behind Ryan Preece for the final postseason position. Since van Gisbergen banked his first top-five finish on an oval at Nashville Superspeedway, he has three consecutive finishes of 30th or worse. In those three weeks, he’s dropped five positions in the standings. Dominating the field in his first Cup attempt at Sonoma last season, van Gisbergen led 97 of 110 laps. He was two points shy of a perfect race and scored the Stage 2 victory. He knows Sonoma could present a bounce-back opportunity. “I know I have a good opportunity to win the race and we will look at the points after,” van Gisbergen added. “We really need a good weekend. That hurt us on that cutline. Need to get some momentum going again and hopefully this weekend starts it and puts us in a good position for the last few races.” Van Gisbergen has been paying attention to his opening-round matchup with Preece in the In-Season Challenge. The two crossed paths at both Pocono Raceway and San Diego, and while van Gisbergen is the overwhelming favorite entering Sonoma, he expects the No. 60 Ford to be a formidable opponent. MORE: Info about SVG's San Diego crash | Fill out an In-Season Challenge bracket! “I see he’s been getting pretty lippy online, so that’s a little fun,” van Gisbergen joked. “We were giving each other [expletive] the other day from Pocono when he was throwing signs at me. He is a good dude. We had a little tussle last week and threw a [expletive] move on me and half-spun me, so I got him back. I look forward to it; it’s cool that there is something else to focus on. He’s been going really well at his road courses this year, so I’m sure I’ll see him on Sunday and it will be a tough but fair battle and see who gets to the next round. I look forward to it.” In 15 battles at road courses since van Gisbergen took the racing world by storm in the inaugural Chicago Street Race in 2023, he has finished ahead of Preece 13 times. Last season, Preece finished 12th at Sonoma while SVG yarded the field, even with a trio of late-race restarts.