Track: Sonoma Raceway Location: Sonoma, California Track length: 1.99 miles When: Sunday, 3:30 p.m. ET Where to tune in: TNT Sports/truTV, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Race purse: $11,055,250 Race distance: 110 laps | 218.9 miles Stages: 25 | 55 | 110 Defending winner: Kyle Larson, June 2024 Starting lineup: Shane van Gisbergen starts from Busch Light Pole
Points to prove at Sonoma in pursuit of Regular Season crown
Sonoma Raceway has hosted 35 NASCAR Cup Series races since the circuit first arrived there in 1989, and all of those visits have fallen in May or June. That calendar quirk makes Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 the latest a Sonoma race has appeared on the schedule.
The playoff pressure that comes with a deeper run into the summer months is accordingly heightened. The fever pitch is fittingly focused on the postseason bubble and the race to clinch one of the remaining berths in the 16-driver field, but the pursuit at the top of the standings now holds a significantly different look with seven regular-season events left.
William Byron is still in the No. 1 perch for the Regular Season Championship and the bonus of 15 playoff points that comes with that honor. He has led the Cup Series standings for 16 of the season’s 19 weeks so far, but the Hendrick Motorsports driver’s grip on that glory is far less secure than in previous weeks. Byron’s points lead has diminished from 68 points to 13 entering Sunday’s race in Sonoma after three finishes of 27th or worse in the past four races, including back-to-back DNFs at Atlanta and Chicago. Four drivers – Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin and Tyler Reddick – now sit within 48 points of Byron.
The proximity is enough to make teams be cognizant of the points gap, even when victories are within reach.
“Some of it’s a little bit of a guess, right, because … wins are obviously great, but the 15 points is also really great,” said Chase Elliott, 13 points back of his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Byron. “If you can get them, we’ve been in a fortunate position to have won that deal before, and it helps a lot — tremendously. So ideally, you get another win or two, and get stage points while doing that. We all know road courses is kind of hard to do both, so these places and just kind of so happen to have a couple on the schedule here back to back.”
Chris Graythen | Getty Images
Two drivers in that top five were 100-plus points behind Byron just four weeks ago. Denny Hamlin missed the Mexico City race while on paternity leave to fall to minus-110, but two top-five runs have his deficit now at just 43 points. Reddick, who drives for Hamlin’s 23XI Racing group, has chopped a 127-point shortfall to now sit just 48 back.
“It’s ultimately going to come down to execution,” said Hamlin, who starts 16th Sunday in search of his first Sonoma win. “I think all the teams that are in it are so very close on speed. There might be a few little advantages to one team here or there, but overall, it’s going to come down to execution. So yeah, we’re glad to be back in it. We were over 100 and something a few weeks ago, and we’ve still had horrible finishes, and we actually had a missed race in there and still gained over these last three or four weeks. So I’m happy about where we’re at, considering.”
The opportunities to make continued gains comes to Sonoma, where missteps and off-track moments might not be punished by contact — as they were last week at the narrow, unforgiving Chicago Street Race — but by the loss of valuable track position and points. Several drivers pushed that limit of control with spins and slide-outs in Saturday’s practice and qualifying sessions, but pushing that edge Sunday will come with a steeper price.
The other daunting part of Sunday’s mission will likely be keeping pace with the pole winner, the red-hot Shane van Gisbergen. The New Zealander ace for Trackhouse Racing has won the Cup Series’ last two road-course events in dominating fashion at Mexico City and Chicago, and he’s considered the presumptive favorite even though he wasn’t fully pleased with his car’s characteristics in practice. Setting those quibbles aside, SVG’s average finish of 2.67 this year on road courses easily clears as the series’ best.
What do crew chiefs have in focus to win Sunday’s race?
Road courses like Sonoma allow crew chiefs the opportunity to flip stages – in other words, pit before the stage ends and forfeit possible stage points in favor of track position on the ensuing restart, after others who stayed out and opted for stage points pit during the caution.
Points are at a premium this weekend. For some, that means chasing a regular-season championship. For others, that means pursuing a path to the playoffs.
Byron and the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports team continue to lead the points standings through 19 races but have struggled to find results (and therefore points) in recent weeks. Coupled with Byron’s resume showing just one top 10 in six Sonoma starts, crew chief Rudy Fugle knows he’ll have his hands full Sunday trying to maximize the team’s day.
“You determine what kind of car you have and if it’s going to work out for you to take (points) or not,” Fugle told NASCAR.com Friday. “I think the biggest thing is you try to set yourself up for a good finish. But if the points are laying there right in front of you and you can still get a good finish, you have to have those discussions. So we’re set up with probably three different plans that can go each way depending our speed and what needs to happen, and we’ll adapt on Sunday as needed.”
On the flip side of the points conversation is Kyle Busch. A two-time Sonoma winner and two-time Cup champion, Busch has a stellar resume at the 1.99-mile, 12-turn road course. But he and the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing team enter Sunday 19th in the provisional playoff standings, 46 points outside the 16-driver postseason bracket.
A slight twist is that this will mark the first race at Sonoma with this particular road-course tire from Goodyear, although teams have utilized it on all road courses in 2025. But with the track repaved ahead of the 2024 race, teams used Saturday’s practice to learn how well the tire grips the racing surface, how it wears and how it may factor into strategy. Several spins and off-course excursions ensued.
“We can try to guess at it the best we can, but we really don’t know until we get out there, obviously,” Randall Burnett, crew chief of the No. 8 car, told NASCAR.com. “The tire is the same tire we’ve been running on all the road courses this year, which is different than what we ran here last year. I feel like we’ve got a pretty good feel on the tire. But yeah, as far as the repaved stuff, you’ve just got to go out there and feel it out, see what the grip level is in those sections and try to learn from it as quick as you can.”
No. 9 should be fine. Chase Elliott has led laps in the last five Sonoma races, tying a series record. Though he’s still seeking his first Sonoma victory, he’s registered single-digit finishes in six of his last seven appearances there. … History also suggests that Sonoma hasn’t been a Ford stronghold in recent years; the manufacturer last won in wine country in 2017 with Kevin Harvick.
He may not be the favorite to win, but watch out for …
CHRIS BUESCHER. The RFK Racing vet finished 18th last weekend in Chicago, but his stature as an underrated road racer remains an upside. That profile hits a higher strength at Sonoma, where the No. 17 Ford driver has placed second, fourth and third his last three times out.
Chris Graythen | Getty Images
Fantasy update
NASCAR Fantasy Live expert Dustin Albino provides insight for your Sunday lineup.
Boy, what a difference one year can make. The Sonoma pavement has aged like a fine wine, giving teams all sorts of challenges during practice and qualifying. Will the real AJ Allmendinger please stand up? After consecutive road course races where he wasn’t in the picture, the No. 16 Chevrolet was fastest in practice and blistered the field on five-lap averages. I’ve added Allmendinger to my lineup and intend on using him for my 36 for 36 pick. I’ve also slotted Ross Chastain into my lineup, as the No. 1 car is using lessons learned from SVG, and his four straight top-10 finishes at Sonoma is tied for the longest active streak (Chase Elliott).
Lineup: Shane van Gisbergen, AJ Allmendinger, Kyle Larson, Ty Gibbs, Ross Chastain. Garage: Chris Buescher.
Our biggest pieces of the week — get covered for race day from all angles.
• NASCAR at Sonoma: Key info, practice reports and more from doubleheader weekend | Read more
• ‘Trusting the process’: Legacy Motor Club making strides in 2025 | Read more
• In-Season Challenge: Your hub for everything related to the 32-driver showdown | Read more • Racing Insights: Where your favorite driver is projected to finish Sunday | Read more
• Field of 16: Preece making his own push for playoff positioning | Read more • Turning Point to Sonoma: Weighing SVG’s posteason aspirations | Read more
• At-track photos: Scenes, sights from the California course | View gallery
• NASCAR Classics: Rewind with full-race Sonoma replays from the vault | Watch now
• Paint Scheme Preview: Fresh designs for Sonoma’s twists, turns | View gallery
• Power Rankings: Allmendinger a threat to shake up playoff picture | This week’s Top 20
SONOMA, Calif. — In closing laps of the Pit Boss/FoodMaxx 250 at Sonoma Raceway, the pupil schooled the master.
Taking shot after shot from JR Motorsports teammate Shane van Gisbergen over the final two laps, Connor Zilisch held off the more experienced driver to claim his third NASCAR Xfinity Series victory of the season and the fourth of his career.
In what was a two-driver show from start to finish, Zilisch and van Gisbergen, the pole winner, combined to lead 70 of the 79 laps, surrendering the top spot only when they short-pitted the first and second stages to recover track position at the stage breaks.
For Zilisch, the victory was revenge for last Saturday’s Xfinity race at the Chicago Street Course, where the 36-year-old van Gisbergen ran his 18-year-old teammate wide in Turn 2 to take the lead and win a two-lap shootout for the victory.
But this time, Zilisch survived contact from van Gisbergen’s front bumper in Turn 7 on the final lap and won the race to the start/finish line, as the New Zealander tried in vain to cross over to the inside in hairpin Turn 11 in a last-ditch effort.
Zilisch powered off the corner and won the race to the finish line by 0.438 seconds.
“First, hats off to Shane,” Zilisch said after climbing from his car. “That was awesome. All race long, I felt like we were racing each other with respect. I wheel-hopped a little bit in Turn 7 one time and got into him. Otherwise, it was awesome to get to race against him finally and battle with him the whole race long.”
Both Zilisch and van Gisbergen managed to pull away from the rest of the field while saving fuel during the final stage.
“It’s always the hardest trying to save fuel while someone’s breathing down your neck,” Zilisch said. “There was a chance that he could have gotten by me when he hit me, but he let me have it and raced me clean. I respect the hell out of him for that, and I’m looking forward to racing against him more.
“We’re going to race each other at Watkins Glen, and that’s one of my favorite tracks, so I hope I can beat him again there.”
Van Gisbergen knew he had an opening when his No. 9 Chevrolet made contact with Zilisch’s No. 88 in Turn 7, but he backed off to let the race play out.
“I gave him a bump into 7, and he wheel-hopped, and I probably could have taken it, but I just waited,” said van Gisbergen, the defending race winner. “I didn’t want to do it like that, and then we raced down the hill. What an awesome race.
Zilisch led 46 laps to 24 for van Gisbergen, who was trying for his third straight NASCAR victory in as many starts after sweeping last weekend in Chicago.
Solid work on pit road gave Zilisch control of the race for the final restart on Lap 51, and he led the rest of the way, thwarting SVG’s persistent attempts to pressure him into a mistake.
William Sawalich, who won Friday’s ARCA West race in a thrilling finish, was the best of the rest, coming home third, 13.668 seconds behind Zilisch. Nick Sanchez ran fourth, followed by Cup regular Riley Herbst, series leader Justin Allgaier, Taylor Gray, Carson Kvapil, Sammy Smith and Sheldon Creed.
With Allgaier, Kvapil and Smith joining Zilisch and van Gisbergen, JR Motorsports placed five drivers in the top nine. The victory was the organization’s 10th in 19 races this season, with Zilisch tying Allgaier and 12th-place finisher Austin Hill for the series lead with three wins.
“I didn’t want to have to have to do anything dirty to win this race, and I’m glad I didn’t and glad to do it fair and square,” Zilisch said. “I learned a lot racing around him, and he’s got so many years of experience on me that I can learn from.”
The Xfinity Series heads east to Delaware next Saturday for a trip to Dover Motor Speedway (4:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Ryan Truex is in the field driving for Sam Hunt Racing as he looks for a three-peat at the one-mile concrete oval.
NOTE: Post-race technical inspection concluded without issue, confirming Connor Zilisch as the race winner. The Nos. 21, 26 and 44 each had one lug nut unsecured, which will result in monetary fines for each of the three teams.
SONOMA, Calif. — Michael McDowell was the man to beat on the Chicago Street Course until his throttle cable frayed after leading the opening 31 laps last week.
At Sonoma Raceway, McDowell has already put that disappointment behind him in favor of a confident excitement in Wine Country.
McDowell started second in Chicago and charged past polesitter Shane van Gisbergen for the top spot immediately, but his mechanical issue on the No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet took away his chance to fight for the win.
“You can’t stay disappointed too long in our sport,” McDowell said Saturday. “So Sunday, yeah, it’s very disappointing. Monday, it was all about getting to the root of the issue that we had and why we had it, and what needed to be done to make sure we don’t have something happen here this weekend. And then Tuesday was all about getting prepared for today and tomorrow.
“You just can’t stay in that moment too long. What-ifs don’t count. What-ifs don’t matter in our sport. The only thing that matters is if you get the checkered flag, and we didn’t.”
On his X account Sunday evening, McDowell put his confidence on full display: “Chicago was a preview. The real show’s next weekend (at Sonoma).”
Turning the page to Sonoma is easy for McDowell. The two-time Cup winner has been exceptional at the 1.99-mile road course in the Next Gen car, posting a 4.0 average finish in three races, highlighted by a runner-up finish in 2024. The motivation of what could have been at Chicago adds a touch of fuel to the fire.
“This is one of my best tracks,” McDowell said. “I have a good rhythm here. I have a good feel for what I need. And you’re fired up, right? You felt like you had a race-winning car and you just finished 33rd with it, so you’re ready to move on to the next week.”
Meg Oliphant | Getty Images
Qualifying initially proved strong for McDowell and the No. 71 team, posting the second-quickest time in Group A with the same car they utilized to finish fifth in Mexico City on June 15. But the track was quicker yet for the second half of the field in qualifying in Group B Saturday, dropping McDowell to a 15th-place starting spot for Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 (3:30 p.m. ET, TNT Sports/truTV, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“That Group 1 session there is definitely going to be a little bit of a hurt,” McDowell said, “just because it’s almost like Formula One — the track’s going to evolve the other way where you’re putting rubber down (and) it’s just going to get faster and faster. But (Sunday), all that will balance out. Hopefully, we get some long runs and slip-sliding around, and we’ll see who can manage all that the best.”
Sitting 24th in the provisional playoff standings, McDowell and his team are aware their path to the postseason relies on a victory. Sonoma provides their next best chance.
“We know what we need to do,” he said. “There’s no emotions around it. We have to win. And it’s very matter of fact; we know that and that’s OK. We’ve been in this spot before. I’ve been in this spot before. Travis (Peterson, crew chief) has been in this spot before, and we’ve been able to rise to the occasion, and I think we will again.”
SONOMA, Calif. — Legacy Motor Club driver Erik Jones is trying to take a business-as-usual approach to Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway (3:30 p.m. ET, TNT Sports/truTV, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), but there’s a twist that may prevent him from doing so.
Jones is one of eight NASCAR Cup Series drivers still alive in the inaugural In-Season Challenge, with a $1-million prize awaiting the winner following the final round at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 27.
Here’s the catch. To advance past Round 3, the 20th-seeded Jones will have to finish higher than 12th-seed John Hunter Nemechek in the only third-round matchup that features one teammate against another.
Jones said Saturday he won’t expect spotter Will Rodgers to apprise him of Nemechek’s position as the race develops.
“No, probably not,” Jones said. “I didn’t think or know where Ricky (Stenhouse, Jr., second-round opponent) was all day [at Chicago], and then I drove it into the wall, and I kind of thought we gave that up, and then we crossed the finish line and it wasn’t a very good day and the first thing Ben (Beshore, crew chief) says is ‘well, we beat the 47 (Stenhouse).’
“And I was like, OK, that is cool. I don’t know how. I will want to know right after, for sure, if I’m not aware of where he is at. But he doesn’t need to let me know.”
Rodgers, entered in Saturday’s Xfinity Series race as pilot of the No. 70 Cope Family Racing Chevrolet with Jones as his primary spotter, had a slightly different take.
“If we are two or three back from him, coming down to it, I may say something,” Rodgers said.
Additional matchups in Round 3 of the In-Season Challenge include No. 32 seed Ty Dillon against No. 8 seed Alex Bowman, No. 15 seed Ryan Preece battling No. 23 seed Tyler Reddick and No. 6 seed Ty Gibbs vs. No. 14 seed Zane Smith.
See where your favorite NASCAR Cup Series driver will pit for the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET, TNT Sports/truTV, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
See where your favorite NASCAR Xfinity Series driver will pit for the Pit Boss/FoodMaxx 250 at Sonoma Raceway on Saturday (4:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
SONOMA, Calif. — For the second straight weekend, Shane van Gisbergen dominated NASCAR time trials — and predictably so.
On his second lap Saturday at Sonoma Raceway, the New Zealander became the only driver to top 96 mph on the 1.99-mile, 12-turn road course.
Touring the circuit in 74.594 seconds (96.040 mph), van Gisbergen secured the pole position for Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 NASCAR Cup Series race (3:30 p.m. ET, TNT Sports/truTV, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Van Gisbergen beat second-place qualifier Chase Briscoe (95.719 mph) by 0.25 seconds to claim his first Busch Light Pole Award at Sonoma, his third of the season and the fourth of his career.
His pole-winning run followed Friday’s top qualifying effort for the Xfinity Series race at Sonoma. Last weekend on the Chicago Street Course, van Gisbergen swept the poles and races in both series.
Qualifying in Group 2, SVG picked up speed substantially from his first lap to his second, from 74.833 seconds to 74.594.
“I thought it could be faster,” said van Gisbergen, who won last season’s Xfinity race at Sonoma but will be making his first start here in a Cup car. “And then in the first group, we saw big gains from people in their second runs. I think the 24 (third-place qualifier William Byron) made a huge jump, which is pretty abnormal, I think, on these tires, especially this new soft tire.
“My first lap was just a banker almost. The second lap was really good.”
Byron navigated the course at 95.488 mph to claim the third spot on the grid. Ross Chastain was fourth at 95.409 mph, followed by AJ Allmendinger (95.367 mph) and Ty Gibbs (95.357 mph).
Ryan Blaney, Tyler Reddick, Alex Bowman and Christopher Bell claimed the seventh through 10th starting spots, respectively.
Drivers facing off in the third round of the In-Season Challenge qualified as follows: Gibbs, sixth vs. Zane Smith, 12th; Bowman, ninth vs. Ty Dillon, 26th; John Hunter Nemechek, 18th vs. Legacy Motor Club teammate Erik Jones, 31st; and Reddick, eighth vs. Ryan Preece, 20th.
Preece, two points below the current elimination line for a berth in the Cup Series Playoffs, may be more concerned with the position of 30th-place starter Bubba Wallace, who is two points to the good, with seven races left in the regular season.
Katherine Legge, who finished 19th last Sunday on the Chicago Street Course, did not make a qualifying attempt and will start 37th.
Allmendinger tops the chart in practice
Allmendinger paced practice Saturday in a session divided between two groups, with each group hitting the track for a 25-minute session. The Kaulig Racing driver turned the fastest lap at 94.325 mph, besting Gibbs (94.024 mph), van Gisbergen (93.965 mph), Chastain (93.782 mph) and Kyle Larson (93.711 mph). Bell, Blaney, Daniel Suárez, Reddick and Nemechek rounded out the top 10. Suárez was the fastest among Group 1 drivers.
Brad Keselowski, as well as all three Spire Motorsports cars driven by Michael McDowell, Justin Haley and Carson Hocevar, went for spins in Group 1 practice.
SONOMA, Calif. — Last weekend, Bubba Wallace was sliding backwards down DuSable Lake Shore Drive in Chicago after contact from Alex Bowman off Turn 2.
By the time they made their ways west to California on Thursday night, Wallace was buying Bowman dinner as both put their incidental run-in behind them.
“I was wondering if he was gonna mention that,” Wallace said. “See, I’m a nice guy!”
A miscommunication led Wallace, driver of the No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota, to cut across Bowman’s nose after a fierce battle for position that involved plenty of contact on the Chicago Street Course. Before Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series practice at Sonoma Raceway, Wallace detailed what led to the error.
“For some reason, my perfectly working digital mirror wasn’t looked at,” Wallace said. “I didn’t look there and assumed that he was to my right. He was to my left. I was just getting back up to give him room for the bottom, and he was actually on the top. So I looked like an idiot.”
Fighting each other as In-Season Challenge opponents last week, the two spoke shortly after the race ended to clear the air, with Wallace assuring Bowman there were no hard feelings after the dustup.
“I think the media definitely wanted that to go in a direction that it didn’t go,” Bowman said. “Yeah, we talked after the race and I saw him the other night at dinner. I think we’re all good. Like, I certainly hate that he got wrecked. I don’t think that much contact was necessary in that situation. But I also understand that he’s trying to race for the bracket challenge and finish the best he can. Kind of is what it is. And he bought me dinner the other night, so we’re good. I’ll move on from it.”
On-track rivals in NASCAR frequently tend to find each other after recent incidents. That proved true again Thursday when the two wound up at the same restaurant for a meal.
“We get to the hotel for dinner two nights ago now, and he’s waiting to get seated right in front of us,” Wallace recalled. “I just come up, give a big bear hug and told him again, ‘Hey, we’re good. Nothing’s wrong.’ And so the hotel we’re at, a lot of (NASCAR) industry people are there. My dinner was bought by somebody else, so I paid for Bowman’s dinner. It just kind of felt right.”
What was a battle for seventh place ultimately plummeted Wallace to 28th, five laps down. Wallace, who apologized to his team this week, is two points above the provisional elimination line in the 16-driver Cup Series Playoffs grid entering Sunday’s race at Sonoma (3:30 p.m. ET, TNT Sports/truTV, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“I was thinking about that, I was thinking about the In-Season [Challenge],” Wallace said. “Like, instead, at the end of the day, I gave up 20- something points, and look where I’m at: plus-two. So yeah, it’s just going through it. Like I felt like that was my debut race. Rookie mentality. And it was like, what the [expletive] are you doing?”
Wallace admitted it took a few days to forgive himself for the error at Chicago. In years past, those few days may have lingered into the weekend or longer. That wasn’t the case this time around.
“To start, it was the same,” Wallace said. “Like Monday, Tuesday, I was pretty down — and mad at myself, right? And then like, oops — I made a mistake doing something else around the house. And it’s like the magnitude is different, but still, a mistake’s a mistake, so you just move on. It’s been fine the last couple days. But yeah, I would say it’d be totally different last year.”
