A last-lap tangle between Ross Chastain and Kyle Busch capped an eventful day of full-contact racing at Sonoma Raceway, and the two Chevrolet drivers came away with differing outcomes and viewpoints from Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series event.
Contact between the two drivers in a contest for fifth place sent Busch’s No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevy spinning in Turn 4A, just before the 1.99-mile road course’s chute. Busch recovered for a 12th-place finish, his fourth consecutive finish outside the top 10.
“We lost track position but our strategy kept us in the game,” said Busch, whose winless streak reached 37 races. “A couple of guys there at the end of the race had better tires than we did but we were going to have a good day. Unfortunately, one of those guys got into us on the last lap and ruined our day. It’s frustrating to not get the finish that we deserved.”
Chastain continued in the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet to his first top-five finish since March, but admitted post-race that he was still trying to digest the strategy shake-up that left him out of contention for the victory, which went to a charging Kyle Larson. Chase Elliott’s final-turn bump for position briefly knocked Chastain from the top five, but he moved back up in the final order to fifth after both drivers blasted by a fuel-dry Martin Truex Jr. just before the checkered flag.
“I’m not sure what happened with the 8, either, I’ll be honest,” Chastain told NASCAR.com. “I’m pretty confused about most things here, but he checked up down into (Turn) 4A. I popped out to not hit him and then I locked up getting in there to his right. So definitely not trying to run into him, and then I get run into by the 9 (Elliott) for a spot in (Turn) 11. Lot of (Chevrolet) bowties running together today. Glad one of them got the win.”
Kyle Busch’s wife, Samantha, had her own assessment of the final-lap clash in a post-race message shared on X.
Chastain moved up one spot in the provisional standings for the Cup Series Playoffs field. Busch jumped up by two spots, but is still slotted as the first driver outside of the postseason Field of 16 — eight points back of Bubba Wallace.
Forty cars can start a NASCAR Cup Series race. That means somebody’s got to claim every position from first through 40th each week.
While the goal of a racing driver is to finish in first place, it turns out that’s quite a common goal among competitors (thus, motorsports); as a result, we get one winner and 39 losers each week.
To quote Reese Bobby, “you can be second, you can be third, fourth … hell, you can even be fifth!”
A driver really could — and often does — finish second, third, fourth or even fifth at some point over the course of their careers. They can finish all the way back through 40th, in fact.
And we’ve got a stat for that.
What we’ve dubbed the All 40 Challenge — checking a box after a driver finishes in each of the 40 possible finishing positions at least once — has become the latest statistical craze in motorsports (OK, not really, but we have fun tracking it).
We’ve tracked this metric for several years now (and for no good reason), like in 2018 when Kyle Busch nabbed his first-ever 26th-place finish, completing the All 40 Challenge in his 493rd career start, or when Alex Bowman pulled off the sweep at Chicagoland in 2019 with his first-career victory. And who could forget David Ragan’s ninth-place triumph to join the club after 476 starts in a one-off start at Daytona?
The latest driver to join the club — Michael McDowell, who capitalized on Martin Truex Jr. running out of gas at Sonoma to claim his first career second-place finish.
We’ll update our #All40Challenge tracker here after each race this season. Follow along to see who joins the club next!
SONOMA, Calif. — Overlooked in the frenzied battle for Saturday’s Xfinity Series trophy at Sonoma Raceway between race winner Shane van Gisbergen and Austin Hill was the performance of another Austin — Austin Green, who scored a career-best fourth-place finish in just his third start.
The son of former driver and current NASCAR official, David Green, Austin earns his stripes currently in the Trans-Am ranks, competing regularly on road courses. He also scored a top 10 in his lone ARCA Menards Series run at Toledo in 2020.
At Circuit of The Americas earlier this season, the 23-year-old wheelman earned his first NASCAR national series start with Jordan Anderson Racing and excelled with a seventh-place run.
He followed up COTA with a top 15 at Portland International Raceway last weekend before working his way through the field at Sonoma from a 22nd-place starting spot to score his best result so far. Green has bettered his finishing result from his starting position by at least 11 spots in each of his three starts so far.
“We didn’t get the qualifying spot that we like so I definitely need to work on that,” Green said after Saturday’s race. “But yeah, just had to pick them off and it was a long race, so keep the nose on it and hats off to everybody at Jordan Anderson Racing. [The car] was on rails [Saturday]. We kind of struggled on short runs, so I was thankful a caution didn’t come out there at the end, but it was awesome.”
Logan Riely | Getty Images
With help from Trans-Am Series organization Peterson Racing, JAR owner Jordan Anderson has been able to maximize the most out of Green’s starts as well as JAR full-time driver Parker Retzlaff. The Wisconsin native finished 11th in Saturday’s affair and has results of ninth and two 11th-place runs in three road-course events in 2024.
Having taken a similar journey through the racing ranks, Anderson appreciates how Green has approached his first national-series starts.
“I’m just so happy for Austin because he’s kind of cut out of the same cloth that I am,” Anderson told NASCAR.com. “He’s had to work hard for these opportunities. When you see a young guy come in and do his homework and work hard and then come up here, he kept a level head all day. He’s up there racing against guys who’ve been doing this for a long time and just extremely proud of how well he handled himself.”
Green will next compete on the Chicago streets when NASCAR returns to the Windy City on Independence Day weekend, along with some select starts on ovals later in the year as he continues to build his NASCAR resume.
“I think Austin has a bright future in our sport,” Anderson said. “I put him and Parker in the same boat. They come out here and they’ll race nose to nose with these guys. They know they gotta be there at the end and both of them did such a great job with that today. I’m excited for him. I know we’ve all talked about some oval races coming up so that’s gonna be cool to see him get an opportunity to go to a place where his background is oval racing. I think he’s gonna keep getting better and keep sharpening his talent here, and hopefully, he’ll keep it rolling.”
A panel representing multiple viewpoints of stock-car racing sat down to discuss one pressing question — What makes a good race?
The result of that conversation debuted in full this evening on NASCAR’s YouTube channel in the NASCAR Insiders Roundtable Presented by Goodyear.
Larry McReynolds, a former crew chief and longtime broadcast analyst, was joined by Alex Weaver, host and reporter for NASCAR.com and voice of the fan; John Probst, NASCAR’s senior vice president and chief racing development officer; Shannon Spake, host of NASCAR on FOX’s studio coverage and with a unique broadcast perspective; and Ty Dillon, the full-time driver of the No. 25 Rackley W.A.R. Chevrolet in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and someone who has competed in all disciplines of racing throughout his life.
As for what makes a great race, Probst said it plain and simple: The people who love the sport are the ones who make it so significant.
“Ultimately, it comes down to the fans,” Probst said. “That’s what really matters.”
The 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season is off to a momentous start, with two of the four closest finishes in the history of the sport occurring within the season’s first 12 races of the year. And a memorable finish could outshine the overall quality of an event.
“Fans really do remember, one, how competitive the whole entire race was,” Weaver said. “But the finish and that photograph that goes up on the end of the wall when you win that race with that checkered flag, fans remember that stuff. It sticks. It really creates that lasting impact.”
Check back for the entire roundtable conversation, including the group’s favorite races, at 7 p.m. ET.
Sonoma Raceway provided an incredible amount of ups and downs in the Toyota/Save Mart 350 — and not just in its elevation changes.
Kyle Larson was able to storm through the field and celebrate his second win in Napa Valley. Few others behind him left the 1.99-mile road course smiling — even those who capitalized on the day to exit with good finishes.
Before the circuit heads to the Midwest for the inaugural Cup race at Iowa Speedway on Sunday (7 p.m. ET, USA Network, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App), here’s a look at the drivers who trended up and slid down through Sonoma.
THREE UP ⬆️
1. Chris Buescher, No. 17 RFK Racing Ford
Brittney Wilbur | NASCAR Digital Media
Started: 26th
Finished: 3rd
What happened: After three weeks of disheartening results, Buescher launched back into the conversation Sunday at Sonoma, leading 32 laps and planting himself firmly in the conversation for the race win. He charged through the field early, setting himself up well enough that crew chief Scott Graves could leave Buescher on track to take the lead ahead of the final-stage restart.
Ultimately, Buescher was at a 13-lap tire disadvantage to eventual race winner Kyle Larson, but Buescher maintained to collect a third-place finish when second-place-running Martin Truex Jr. ran out of fuel. It’s Buescher’s first top-five finish since coming 0.001 seconds short of the victory at Kansas Speedway on May 5, ending a spell of poor results: 30th at Darlington Raceway, 23rd at Charlotte Motor Speedway and 14th at World Wide Technology Raceway.
What’s next: Buescher heads to Iowa Speedway for the track’s inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race. The Texas native scored an Xfinity Series win at the 0.875-mile oval in 2015.
2. Michael McDowell, No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford
Brittney Wilbur | NASCAR Digital Media
Started: 12th
Finished: 2nd
What happened: Despite starting 12th, McDowell’s day was anything but smooth sailing and required a gargantuan comeback. The No. 34 Ford was inside the top 10 to begin Stage 2 but took an opportunity during an early-stage caution to hit pit road. That decision set the car back in traffic, just for calamity to strike in front of McDowell entering Turn 11, forcing him to knife through spun and sitting cars. The Arizona native then was involved in another melee not of his own doing, getting spun through the grass at Turn 8A after checking up for Austin Cindric, Noah Gragson and Corey LaJoie’s contact ahead.
But the veteran driver persevered and ran solidly inside the top five late in Sunday’s going, capitalizing on his speed and others’ misfortune to charge into a runner-up finish, his first top-five result of 2024.
What’s next: McDowell is no stranger to Iowa Speedway and has great results to show for it. In eight Xfinity starts — including six with Joe Gibbs Racing — McDowell has a 6.9 average finish at the Midwestern short track, earning a runner-up finish in 2014, his most recent outing.
3. Kyle Busch, No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet
Meg Oliphant | Getty Images
Started: 29th
Finished: 12th
What happened: A topsy-turvy day for Busch ultimately resulted in a net positive, finishing 17 positions better than he started. But even that felt like a little bit of a letdown for the two-time Cup champion. Busch was running fifth on the final lap, but a hard-charging Ross Chastain rocketed into Turn 4 and appeared to lock his brakes while attempting to pass Busch, ultimately spinning the No. 8 Chevrolet around.
Busch was still able to salvage a 12th-place finish for his efforts, continuing a four-race stretch of results outside the top 10 but earning his second top 15 in that stretch.
What’s next: Busch has only made two Xfinity starts at Iowa Speedway — way back in 2009 and 2010 — but managed finishes of second and first.
THREE DOWN ⬇️
1. Joey Logano, No. 22 Team Penske Ford
Brittney Wilbur | NASCAR Digital Media
Started: 1st
Finished: 21st
What happened: All things started beautifully for Logano, who led each of the first 16 laps before the No. 22 team opted to pit under caution to get a jump on fuel strategy. That decision ultimately played a part in upending the team’s day, though, placing Logano in unfortunate circumstances when Chase Briscoe spun at Turn 8A. With Briscoe’s No. 14 Ford sideways cresting the corner, Logano darted left to avoid the mess but instead caught the rear of Briscoe’s car with the No. 22 Ford’s passenger-side door.
Logano never properly recovered and finished 21st despite starting from the pole position for the third time this season.
What’s next: Surprisingly, Logano has never made an Xfinity, Craftsman Truck, or ARCA start at Iowa — but don’t rule him out. Logano has a knack for doing really well when the Cup Series attends a track for the first time.
2. William Byron, No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
Logan Riely | Getty Images
Started: 6th
Finished: 30th
What happened: Byron’s race turned upside down almost immediately and never landed right-side up. The No. 24 Chevy was forced to pit with a flat rear tire at Lap 13, miring him back in traffic early. He charged back to 12th place in Stage 2 but was then collected in the Turn 11 pileup, breaking a toe link on Byron’s suspension.
The team eventually cleared the Damaged Vehicle Policy clock and could further repair the damage, but the day never quite improved. He later suffered a flat right-rear tire within the final 25 laps. Byron, a three-time winner this year, came home 30th, two laps down — his third finish of 23rd or worse in the past six races.
What’s next: Byron could use some good momentum and might find it at Iowa, where he has two wins — one each in Xfinity (2017) and Truck (2016) competition — in three national series starts.
3. Ty Gibbs, No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Digital Media
Started: 10th
Finished: 37th
What happened: A self-admitted, self-induced mistake thwarted any chance of a good run Sunday for Ty Gibbs. A misjudgment exiting Turn 11 led Gibbs into the right-side concrete barriers on corner exit, impacting the right-front tire and wheel. That went from bad to worse two corners later when Gibbs couldn’t steer his car out of the Turn 1 concrete.
The result was a retirement after completing just 16 of 110 laps, leading to a 37th-place finish in the 38-car field.
What’s next: Gibbs may not have any Xfinity or Truck starts at the Iowa short track, but he does have three ARCA Menards Series races to lean on. In a shock to no one who remembers Gibbs’ ARCA domination, he has two wins in three starts at the 0.875-mile oval.
Kyle Larson wasn’t really certain about Sunday’s race-winning strategy, the one that delivered his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet to Sonoma Raceway’s wine-soaked Victory Lane for a second time.
“Yeah, I didn’t know what we were doing as far as strategy. I was just out there banging laps away,” Larson said in his post-checkered flag interview. “I don’t know, we study all the strategy, but it’s like doing homework. I don’t really know what I’m looking at.”
Turns out, he didn’t need to. Larson cut through the unexpectedly topsy-turvy nature of the Toyota/Save Mart 350’s first half, blocked out the dizzying array of pit strategies that emerged and rose above a week’s worth of chatter about playoff eligibility and waivers and the like to focus on what he does: drive.
His at-track support staff, led by a capable commandant in crew chief Cliff Daniels, dealt with all the strategy, subplots and zigzags around him. Larson did the rest.
“Because he drives the wheels off of it,” said Hendrick Motorsports vice chairman Jeff Gordon, noting Larson’s pace, tire management and wise decision-making on the track — no strategy-sleuthing necessary. Take it from Gordon, another multiple-time Sonoma winner with Northern California roots. “… I think it’s obviously extracting the most speed out of a car. You don’t have to know anything about a car to extract speed out of it. I think where it comes down to — where he probably is a little too humble in some of the things he says is that he’s a key element of what the car is doing to be able to give that communication information back to Cliff and the team to get more out of it.”
Daniels’ approach helped, especially when the opening two stages of Sunday’s 110-lap contest threw the field a breaking ball with extra curve. Four of the last five Sonoma races had been relatively incident-free with longer green-flag runs that set the strategy table, and several other road-course races in the Next Gen era have adhered to that script. The first half Sunday, however, was a higgledy-piggledy flurry of caution periods for off-track excursions and significant stack-ups.
Daniels could have reacted with alarm when the best intentions for pre-race plans went haywire. Instead, he met the shifting strategy challenges with an embrace.
“That was actually fun because it changed everything everybody had in their mindset for how to understand pace, falloff, all those things, that it just changed the factors that you had to solve for,” Daniels said. “People could do things differently. We were completely off script with the way that we called the race, but that was fun.”
Larson may have been unaware of just how convoluted the strategy shake-up got, but where Daniels and Co. netted out was a longer run to start the final stage, which left the No. 5 Chevy with Goodyear tires that were 13 laps fresher than two of his nearest competitors, Chris Buescher and Martin Truex Jr. That call from Daniels put Larson on offense for the final stretch, and he picked off both Buescher and Truex in one swoop to lead the final nine laps.
“Well, that’s all you really can do when you’re behind the wheel is just trust that they’ve got it figured out, and then as long as you keep the car on the race track, don’t get passed by people, usually whatever strategy I feel like you’re on is going to typically work out OK,” Larson said. “You may not win, but you’re still going to finish good.”
Winning for the third time this season helped Larson regain the Cup Series points lead, reaffirming his status as a top playoff contender for the second time in five days. The first was a more clerical designation, coming from NASCAR officials who confirmed his postseason eligibility with a waiver after he missed the Coca-Cola 600 when weather fouled the Indianapolis 500 rookie’s double-duty plans.
Sunday’s second affirmation was a bit more intangible, with Larson’s drive through the field serving as yet another validation of the team’s overall strength with the playoffs looming. He’s earned more points than anyone this season, with one fewer start. He also blockaded the seemingly wide-open door for Buescher and Truex, who both held promising hopes of scratching the win column for a playoff berth before their late Sunday fades.
Larson reached a pair of milestones with Sunday’s triumph, which marked the 20th win of his Hendrick Motorsports tenure that began in 2021. His 26th Cup Series win overall also inched him up NASCAR’s all-time win list, tying him with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Fred Lorenzen — both Hall of Famers.
The victory was a different experience than his most recent tally, a nail-biting win last month by a record 0.001 seconds that denied Buescher at Kansas Speedway. Sunday’s path was a bit more methodical, the drama reserved for his eventual rise back through the field on fresher rubber.
Asked which path to Victory Lane he favored, Larson was indifferent — just like he was with the swirling strategies.
“I just prefer winning,” Larson said. “However you have to do that, whatever.”
SONOMA, Calif. — In most contexts, a top-three finish on a road course is a stellar result for any Cup Series driver.
Michael McDowell and Chris Buescher respectively ran second and third when the checkered flag waved on a crystal-clear Sunday at Sonoma Raceway.
While the points will pay big for both drivers, it’s another race weekend without a victory to provisionally lock them a spot in the postseason field with 10 races to go until the 16-driver fight for the Bill France Cup is set.
“We’ve just had too many missed opportunities this year, and in the Cup Series, you have to be perfect to win a race, and we just weren’t perfect today,” McDowell said.
To score his best finish of 2024 thus far, McDowell needed to overcome a pair of obstacles to set up the final result. After starting outside the top 10, the 39-year-old had to play for points at the end of the first stage and grabbed five after the first 25 laps. However, the No. 34 was caught up in a multicar incident on Lap 42 at the start of the esses section in Turn 7.
The damage set McDowell back, but it caused a strategy shift from eventual race winner Kyle Larson that put him back toward the front. Along with Buescher, Martin Truex Jr. and Kyle Busch, the group of drivers were on a fuel-only strategy during the final stage after pitting during the Stage 2 caution.
Larson was able to run them all down with 10 laps to go to cruise out to the lead, but the deferred strategy resulted in a better run than expected, except for Truex, who ran out of gas coming to the finish line and parachuted down to 27th on the results sheet.
“There’s a lot of strategies going on, so it’s hard to know from the driver’s seat where you’re at and who is going to be where because there’s just so many different strategies,” McDowell said. “But as it started to cycle out, I knew that we had to run down the leaders, and we had fresher tires than some of them, but Larson had the freshest tires of all, so it just didn’t go our way.
“I think if we could have kept our track position there and not had to come back down pit road to fix the damage, we would have had 10 or so more spots forward, and that would’ve been 10 less cars that I had to pass to get to the front.”
Entering Sunday’s race with just a 10-point cushion as the 16th driver provisionally into the playoffs, Buescher had an uphill climb starting from 26th.
He kept his No. 17 RFK Racing Ford clean through a slew of cautions for cause in the first half of the race and became a true contender for the win after taking the Stage 2 checkered flag. But as nothing seemed to get in Larson’s way to stall his push to the lead, the season trend continued for Buescher as he couldn’t hold serve in the closing laps.
Despite another trip to the winner’s circle taken late from the Prosper, Texas native, Buescher found the positive in his final tally.
Brittney Wilbur | NASCAR Digital Media
“If you had told us at the beginning of the day that we’d be able to win a stage and come home with a third-place finish, I think we would’ve been pretty dang happy with that,” Buescher said. “So, trying to remember that side from six hours ago and enjoy it. But yeah, when you’re close, you’re always gonna think about what-ifs.
“Ultimately, if we would have started a lot farther forward, it may have opened up better opportunities for us to have some fresher tires and to fight for it a little better there at the end.”
Leaving Sonoma, Buescher added another 22-point cushion and is now 15th on the provisional playoff grid, 32 points up on Busch.
As for McDowell, a 93-point chasm to the top 16 will likely be too much to overcome if he’s to go winless when the checkered flag waves for the Southern 500 on Labor Day weekend, but given the pace the Front Row Motorsports stable has shown throughout the season so far, McDowell’s confident he’ll get that sticker on his car before it’s too late.
“We’re close. I believe wholeheartedly we will win a race before the end of this regular season,” McDowell said. “We have the speed, and we have the team to do it. We just have to put it all together.”
SONOMA, Calif. — The hometown hero Kyle Larson executed as he needed to, making a pass for the lead with eight laps remaining in the NASCAR Cup Series’ Toyota/Save Mart 350 to claim his second win at the Sonoma Raceway road course and third trophy of the season.
It was a frantic start to the day on the newly repaved 1.99-mile course through the rolling Northern California hills with seven caution flags falling before the 110-lap race’s halfway point — more yellow flags than the previous two Sonoma races had combined.
But the final 51 laps ran caution-free with varying pit-stop strategies playing a vital role in track position. The Hendrick Motorsports driver Larson was among the last to make his final stop — coming out on track in eighth position with 20 laps remaining and then moving forward by picking off one car, sometimes two cars at a time.
Larson — who is from Elk Grove, California, about an hour from the track — ultimately put his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet out front to stay after a dramatic three-way battle with four-time Sonoma winner Martin Truex Jr. and Chris Buescher with eight to go.
After Larson passed them both, Truex kept Larson honest for much of the closing laps only to run out of gas on the final corner. His No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota came to a stop in front of the frontstretch grandstands about 40 yards shy of the checkered flag. And with the other cars zooming by, Truex ultimately inched his car forward to a cheering crowd limping across the finish line in a heartbreaking 27th place.
“I didn’t know what we were doing as far as strategy,” said the 31-year-old Larson. “I was just out there banging laps away. … So I was like, these guys have to pit another time maybe but then when they said I had to go race and then pass those guys, I got a bit nervous. I knew I’d be quick from the get-go but thought once the tires came up to temp it would even off too much.
“Thankful we had enough grip. Thankful too, those guys got racing and Martin never got clear really to where I’d be stuck in third. Just an awesome, awesome race.”
After making a last-lap pass of Buescher and then benefitting from Truex’s situation, Front Row Motorsports driver Michael McDowell came across the line in second place — 4.258 seconds behind Larson.
Buescher’s No. 17 RFK Racing Ford was third followed by Hendrick’s Chase Elliott and Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain, who had a collision with Richard Childress Racing driver Kyle Busch on the last lap that sent Busch’s No. 8 Chevrolet off track and dropped him from a likely top-10 finish to 12th place.
“Proud of everybody,” Buescher said of his 32 laps led and Stage 2 win despite starting the race 26th. “That was a good one to be close and in the hunt. … Kind of a tough weekend until today. If you had told us we’d gather some playoff and stage points, we’d be happy. Just needed a bit more coming to the finish line.”
Kaulig Racing’s AJ Allmendinger was sixth followed by Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney and 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick, who won the opening stage and led a race-best 35 laps. Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell finished ninth and Front Row Motorsports’ Todd Gilliland claimed 10th-place — the 23-year-old driver’s second top-10 finish of the season.
Polesitter Joey Logano finished 21st and the two Australian Supercar Series drivers making their NASCAR debuts — Will Brown and Cam Waters — finished 31st and 35th, respectively.
It was a significant win for the 2021 series champion Larson, giving him the championship lead by 14 points over his Hendrick teammate Elliott. It comes on the heels of last week’s news that Larson would be granted a playoff waiver from NASCAR despite missing the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway two weeks ago.
The multi-talented Larson had competed in a rain-delayed Indianapolis 500 on Memorial Day weekend with plans to run racing’s celebrated “Double” – the Indy 500 and Charlotte’s Coca-Cola 600. Bad weather, however, ruined those plans. There was a rain delay in Indianapolis, where Larson finished 18th and by the time he arrived in Charlotte to assume driving duties in that NASCAR race, rain had forced officials to call it early and he never was able to turn a lap.
Larson’s victory Sunday — his 26th career win — was significant for him in the championship standings, but the race was also a big deal for the opposite reasons for Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin, who had held the points lead entering the race. Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota suffered an engine problem after just two laps and he finished 38th — last — in the field. He dropped to third in the championship standings, 26 points behind Larson.
“No [warning], it’s just the gearing is a little weird for the track,” said Hamlin, who snapped a five-race streak of top-five finishes that included a win at Dover and a runner-up at Gateway last week.
“It’s a lot of high-end RPM stuff, but the same as everyone else and I’m just not really sure. They’ll look at it and figure it out, but certainly not ideal.”
His JGR teammate Ty Gibbs was out just 14 laps later after his No. 54 Toyota clipped the Turn 11 wall, damaging his right-front and sending his car into the Turn 1 barrier.
The Cup Series’ next race is the Iowa Corn 350, scheduled next Sunday (7 p.m. ET, USA Network, NBC Sports App, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Iowa Speedway. The event is the Cup Series’ first at the 0.875-mile oval in the Hawkeye State.
Note: Post-race inspection in the Cup Series garage was completed without issue at Sonoma Raceway, confirming Larson’s victory. No cars were selected for further inspection at the NASCAR Research & Development Center.
Denny Hamlin made an early exit at Sonoma Raceway on Sunday when his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota suffered an apparent engine failure after just two laps.
Hamlin’s No. 11 entry trailed thick, white smoke as he crossed the road course’s start/finish line to complete his second lap in the Toyota/Save Mart 350. As the race’s first retiree, he was credited with last place in the 38-car field, which knocked him from the lead in the Cup Series standings.
Hamlin, who started 25th in the 110-lap race, had registered five consecutive top-five finishes before Sunday’s early retirement. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver, who entered Sunday as the series leader with a 21-point advantage over Kyle Larson, said he had no indication of a motor problem until the engine expired.
“No, I didn’t notice anything,” Hamlin said. “Just trying to get up to speed, but no, that was out of the blue, for sure, down the straightaway.”
Hamlin’s worst finish of the season dropped him two spots in the standings to third, 26 points behind race-winner Larson and 12 points behind second-place Chase Elliott, Larson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate.
Shane van Gisbergen was giddy with excitement, showering smoke everywhere as he burned out his rear tires around the 1.99-mile Sonoma Raceway road course to celebrate his second straight NASCAR Xfinity Series win. But in the clouds of that smoke stewed more fumes — particularly in the cockpit of the No. 21 Chevrolet.
Austin Hill was less than pleased to finish fifth in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race, especially since the victorious SVG used the bumper to score the second win of his budding Xfinity career.
“I’m just gonna leave it to the keyboard warriors on this one. I’ll let them figure out what happened,” a frustrated but restrained Hill told FOX Sports. “I’m sure no matter what comment I say, it’ll be wrong.”
The latest instance of their on-track disagreements came on a restart with 11 laps to go in the Zip Buy Now, Pay Later 250. Hill, who was the leader under caution, chose the left lane for the re-fire with SVG alongside him on the front row. Hill got the edge through the left-handed sweeping Turn 1, but van Gisbergen had the preferred inside line up the hill to Turn 2.
Van Gisbergen charged hard into the corner, but Hill didn’t appear to leave much room. The two collided, sending Hill sliding toward the grass and ruining his momentum while van Gisbergen scooted away for the eventual victory.
“I plead the fifth. I’m not gonna say anything about it,” Hill said. “We’ll just go onto the next one. Good, hard racing. Bennett Chevrolet was fast as Xfinity internet. We were holding off SVG there for a while, had that caution and I knew it was gonna be tough on the restart. Then, it didn’t work out, but we had a good points day, finished in the top five. Can’t ask for more than that.”
This wasn’t their first run-in, though. In March, the two faced a similar duel in a double-overtime restart at Circuit of The Americas. On that day, Hill lined up in the second row just behind SVG and shoved the New Zealander deep into Turn 1, enough to move him out of the way and allow Hill to move through to the lead. But SVG got back to him on the final lap, moved Hill, and both of them subsequently lost to Kyle Larson.
So, after that incident more than two months ago, was it simply “fair game” no matter what happened on the final Sonoma restart?
“One-hundred percent,” van Gisbergen said.
Brittney Wilbur | NASCAR Digital Media
Van Gisbergen, a three-time Australian Repco Supercars Championship series champion, is still learning the ropes of stock-car racing. He stunned the world last summer with a win in his NASCAR Cup Series debut on the Chicago Street Course and made an additional start on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, but the 2024 season marks his first full-time campaign stateside, driving the No. 97 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet.
Through the opening five months, those on-track lessons have proven to include contact and managing the frustrations of both himself and his competitors as a grueling season wears on.
“I hate racing and thinking like that, but to me, we’ve both taken a race win off each other now,” van Gisbergen said. “I don’t know. I didn’t go into the corner planning to take him out. Like, I wasn’t going to hit him off the track, but I was gonna try to pass him and I did everything I could. And when he kept choosing left on restarts, I was like ‘oh, that’s surprising,’ because I chose the left on the first restart and it was a mistake. And if I had the opportunity again I would have chosen the right every time.
“So as soon as he chose the left, I knew, OK, this is a good opportunity to hang around the outside (of Turn 1) and force my way to the inside at Turn 2. And, like, I didn’t take him out properly, you know? I just made a hole and got through.”
Hill has also been no stranger to confrontation throughout his career—or even the last few weeks. Contact with Cole Custer at Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 25 sent both Hill and Custer into the outside wall, with both receiving heavy damage. Hill showed his displeasure by then intentionally turning Custer’s wrecked car on the backstretch, sending the No. 00 Ford into the inside SAFER barrier and resulting in a $25,000 fine issued to Hill.
The tensions haven’t quite reached that fever pitch between Hill and SVG — yet. A new rivalry may have seen its latest chapter written in Napa Valley, with more to come.
“That last restart, I was just making a hole no matter what,” van Gisbergen said. “And yeah, it pretty felt like a pretty cool move, and hopefully it’s good to watch, but yeah, that was just hard racing, you know? Pretty stoked to come away with it.”
