Shane van Gisbergen won at Sonoma. He spent most of the afternoon insisting he was the problem.
The New Zealander led the most laps and held off a hard-charging Chase Briscoe to take his second Cup Series win of 2026 and the eighth road course victory of his career, enough to tie Hall of Famer Tony Stewart for second on the all-time list, one behind Jeff Gordon. It was a near-perfect day: he swept the weekend after winning Saturday's race, flipped both stages and still collected stage points.
It was also exactly what he needed. A week earlier, van Gisbergen had been caught up in a crash through no fault of his own at San Diego, scoring a single point and dropping out of the playoff places. Sonoma, the last road course of the season, put him back in.
"We missed a lot of points last week, so great to get some back this one," he said.
For a driver who has rewritten the road-course record book, the closing laps were uncomfortable. Briscoe, who finished second for the second straight year at Sonoma, reeled him in as his tyres faded and lapped traffic dirtied his air.
"I thought we were a lost cause," van Gisbergen admitted of how the day began. "The last 10 laps I was really in a world of hurt. So yeah, it got pretty tense at the end." He added that he "spent the last 40 laps praying there wasn't going to be" a caution that would have bunched the field and handed Briscoe a final shot.
The most striking part of his media session was how little credit he took. "I'm still the weak link as a driver, but I've got good teammates in the other cars and they're struggling as well," he said. "We all as a team need to improve. It's just going to come through hard work and trying to emulate what the other Chevys are doing."
That assessment, driver good and team not quite there, was echoed by those watching. Analysts at The Iceberg argued the result actually exposed how much Trackhouse is holding van Gisbergen back, pointing out the 97 was not a top-three car on pace and that teammate Ross Chastain has struggled to crack the top 20 in points. Eric Estepp of Out of the Groove made a similar case: van Gisbergen did everything he needed to, but with the team yet to match the strides made by rival Chevrolet camps like Hendrick and Spire, a 36-point buffer to the playoff cut with eight oval-heavy races to go may not be enough.
Van Gisbergen, for his part, framed the rest of the season in the simplest terms. "Now I just have to do my best every week and keep improving. Don't do anything stupid, just accumulate points," he said, knowing the road courses where he is untouchable are now behind him. "Some weeks we can run 10th to 15th pretty easily and other weeks it's a battle to run 30th."
The win lifted him to 14th in the standings, 36 points inside the cut with the series at its halfway mark, 18 races down and 18 to go. Whether the team can give him a car worthy of the driver is the question that will define his summer.
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*Originally published on [Motorsports Global](https://motorsports.global/article/van-gisbergen-wins-sonoma-but-calls-himself-the-weak-link). Visit for full coverage.*