Shane Van Gisbergen thought his car was ‘average’ in practice on Saturday at Sonoma Raceway and then he went out and won the pole by four tenths of a second seeking back-to-back NASCAR Cup Series road course wins and his third overall this season.

“It felt really slippery and I sort of saw that in the first (practice) group and a lot of people were having big lap time fall off and struggling with the rear (tires) in particular,” Van Gisbergen said. “So yeah, I tried to manage in practice, started slow and tried to keep it a consistent speed.

“And my car was very, very average actually, so hopefully we can make it better for tomorrow but then in qualifying on the new tires, it was great.”

‘SVG’ is no stranger to hot streaks as a three-time Australian Supercars champion but this is his first at the highest level of America stock car racing as the division is in the midst of three road course races in four weeks stretch.

“It's pretty awesome,” Van Gisbergen said. “We've had a really cool couple of weeks and I see how stoked everyone is and you feel the energy when you walk in the shop on Monday and Tuesday and see the guys and girls preparing the cars. It’s a cool atmosphere in the shop.

“Everyone's lifted up right from Ross (Chastain’s) win, kind of started it at the Coke 600 and we just got better and better. So yeah, it's really cool for everyone.”

If Van Gisbergen can win his third race on Sunday, it would also tie him for the overall lead in the Cup Series with Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell despite an overall season that has him 27th in the championship standings.

After all, he’s a Cup Series rookie and this is only his second year racing ovals in general after a very similar season in Xfinity last year.

Kyle Larson, one of the best at Sonoma, expects this race to run through ‘SVG’ too.

“I’d hope that we’re a little closer, but he’s still going to be the fastest, I think,” Larson said. “You know, you look at Xfinity – he dominated the weekend here last year ... I would say the competition’s a little closer to him as we come to more normal road courses, like COTA and hopefully Sonoma.

“Watkins Glen, he was still the fastest there last year, but it’s a race. But yeah, in Mexico, he was super good. And then, yeah, Chicago, I think he’s just really, really, really familiar with the size of his car and what it takes to push the limits and not be over the limit. So, yeah, I don’t know. We’ll see. I hope that we’re much closer to him this week.”

Chastain and Logano revisited

A week removed from their post-race confrontation in Downtown Chicago, Joey Logano and Ross Chastain haven’t spoken this week and do not seem to be particularly aligned on what happened.

 In their incident, which occurred with 13 laps to go, Chastain got sideways due to a nudge from Kyle Larson and appeared to mistakenly retaliate against Logano, who was not directly involved in this particular occurrence.

Logano confronted Chastain after the race and told reporters that the exchange include a confession that there was an intentional crash. The defending champion suggested NASCAR should have penalized Chastain for it.

For their part, NASCAR reviewed the incident and released no such penalties, but officials have said they will keep an eye on the two this weekend at Sonoma.

When asked about it on Saturday, Logano just shrugged and said ‘it is what it is.’

Should Chastain have reached out to smooth it over this week?

“He’s made his choices,” Logano told a scrum during his media availability at Sonoma on Saturday. “I’m just going to go race my car.”

What followed was more awkward silence and then a laugh from Logano.

“What more do you want me to say,” Logano said while chuckling.

Chastain said he felt ‘a lot of people ran into each other’ and ‘for two laps, we were all running into each other’ and watching the video back confirmed that stance.

As a result, there was no reason to reach back out to Logano.

“I didn’t (need to) and he aired all of his grievances,” Chastain said.

In addition, Chastain said he’s talked with NASCAR as he frequently does.

“There are three sides to every story,” Chastain concluded.

His side
His side
And the truth

Bubba, Bowman move on

On the other hand, Bubba Wallace and Alex Bowman have moved on from their own terse moment from Downtown Chicago with the former even buying dinner for the latter.

Wallace and Bowman were matched up in the second round of the In Season Challenge in addition to both races each other for one of the few remaining playoff spots too. 

Bubba Wallace with some words after the #NASCAR race in Chicago. pic.twitter.com/10vFFSJ3cr

— Matt Moreno (@TheMattMoreno) July 6, 2025

“I think the media definitely wanted that to go in a direction that it didn’t go,” Bowman told NASCAR.com. “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.”

Wallace appreciated that Bowman made their dinner point public.

“I was wondering if he was going to mention that,” Wallace said. “See, I’m a nice guy!”

So what happened to trigger and back-and-forth that ended with Wallace spun off the nose of Bowman with five laps to go?

“For some reason, my perfectly working digital mirror wasn’t looked at,” Wallace told NASCAR.com “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.”

As for dinner?

“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.”

To his point, Wallace also gave up 20 points, and now finds himself just three points ahead of the playoff cutline as opposed to over 20.

“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 fuck are you doing?”

Starting lineup

1	88	Shane Van Gisbergen #	74.594
2	19	Chase Briscoe	74.844
3	24	William Byron	75.025
4	1	Ross Chastain	75.087
5	16	AJ Allmendinger	75.120
6	54	Ty Gibbs	75.128
7	12	Ryan Blaney	75.134
8	45	Tyler Reddick	75.176
9	48	Alex Bowman	75.233
10	20	Christopher Bell	75.243
11	5	Kyle Larson	75.254
12	38	Zane Smith	75.278
13	9	Chase Elliott	75.283
14	17	Chris Buescher	75.373
15	71	Michael McDowell	75.408
16	11	Denny Hamlin	75.437
17	8	Kyle Busch	75.475
18	42	John Hunter Nemechek	75.517
19	99	Daniel Suarez	75.563
20	60	Ryan Preece	75.589
21	6	Brad Keselowski	75.624
22	22	Joey Logano	75.629
23	77	Carson Hocevar	75.666
24	2	Austin Cindric	75.734
25	21	Josh Berry	75.836
26	10	Ty Dillon	76.033
27	41	Cole Custer	76.122
28	35	Riley Herbst #	76.254
29	7	Justin Haley	76.270
30	23	Bubba Wallace	76.275
31	43	Erik Jones	76.297
32	4	Noah Gragson	76.299
33	3	Austin Dillon	76.461
34	47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	76.623
35	34	Todd Gilliland	76.732
36	51	Cody Ware	77.478
37	78	* Katherine Legge	No Time