Saturday at Sonoma Raceway, Shane van Gisbergen absolutely dominated from pole position. Driving the No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet, SVG earned his sixth career NASCAR O’Reilly win and his 13th victory as a NASCAR driver.
JRM teammate Connor Zilisch finished second, fighting back from a mid-race speeding penalty to do so. Brent Crews finished third, while the Viking Motorsports duo of Anthony Alfredo and Parker Reztlaff finished fourth and fifth.
Corey Day, Sam Mayer, Jesse Love, and Sheldon Creed filled out the rest of the top ten.
Van Gisbergen now has three wins at Sonoma — two in the NASCAR O’Reilly Series and one in Cup. In his attempt to sweep the weekend and defend his 2025 Sonoma Cup win, Van Gisbergen will start sixth on Sunday.
Stage 1
As Van Gisbergen controlled the race from pole, Blaine Perkins with the first driver to go for a spin, and Brandon Jones also went off early. Additionally, Brad Perez did not start the race due to an issue with the car.
Lavar Scott and and Kyle Sieg later spun at the hairpin, and a tire carcass came off of Sieg’s car, triggering the first caution of the race.
On the ensuing restart, there was no change for the lead as Van Gisbergen maintained control. Back in the pack, Dean Thompson spun, and Jeb Burton had a wild off through Turns 3 and 4.
Jones then fell out of the race due to a broken transmission, but made it back to the pits.
As expected, many drivers decided to short-pit and flip the stage, including Van Gisbergen. After working his way from deep in the field, Zilisch was hit with a speeding penalty during his stop.
Alfredo stayed out, holding off Crews for the Stage 1 win, followed by Gray, Retzlaff, Day, Hill, Chastain, Rodgers, Bilicki, and Labbe.
Stage 2
Perkins and Harrison Burton restarted on the front row after staying out on older tires, but they were quickly shuffled back by Van Gisbergen and the other front-runners.
H. Burton went for a spin through the Turn 1 dirt, and moments later, Ross Chastain took his car off-track and down the dragstrip as he suffered a race-ending mechanical issue. The fluid on the track forced officials to put the race back under caution.
As the race progressed, Zilisch worked his way all the way up to second, but Van Gisbergen remained unchallenged for the lead. He flipped the stage, but Zilisch decided to run it out. While sacrificing track position, running to the stage break meant Zilisch did not need to save fuel on the next run.
Zilisch won Stage 2 , followed by S. Smith, Creed, Crews, Kvapil, Mayer, Caruth, R. Sieg, Labbe and Rodgers.
Stage 3
Van Gisbergen held the lead after a brief challenge from Love, and the stayed green.
Back in the field, Thompson went for another spin after contact from another car. Allgaier also went for a spin in what has been a difficult day for the championship leader.
Zilisch quickly got back up to second in the running order, but he was over four seconds behind Van Gisbergen. Even at a slight tire disadvantage and needing to save fuel, the gap did not really change much as Zilisch began his pursuit.
Hill made an unscheduled pit stop from inside the top ten, but it’s unclear what the issue was. Leland Honeyman fell off the pace, but he managed to limp his way back to the pits.
Behind Van Gisbergen and Zilisch, the battle for third was getting interesting. Alfredo made a bold three-wide pass as Love began to fade, with Crews and Gray quickly following him through. Crews then attacked Alfredo, passing him with five laps to go and bringing teammate Gray through as well.
Van Gisbergen nursed the car to the finish, taking the win over Zilisch. He even had enough for a post-race burnout.
Gray ran out of fuel on the last lap, stopping just short of the finish line. Jones then pushed his JGR teammate across the line, but NASCAR ruled that Gray crossing the line would not count because Jones assisted him.
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