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Van Gisbergen takes another road course pole

van gisbergen

By Thomas Miles

Date posted: 13 July 2025

For the fourth straight NASCAR Cup Series road course race, Shane van Gisbergen will start from pole after dominating qualifying in Sonoma.

Van Gisbergen carried on his hot form with his 1:14.594 a comfortable three tenths better than the rest, whilst he was the only driver to hit 96mph.

The Kiwi achieved his fourth Cup Series on his second lap of the 1.99-mile, 12-turn road course.

After Chicago, it is his second straight pole sweep across both series, having also topped the Xfinity Series qualifying with the race taking place right now.

Chase Briscoe was a distant second ahead of Will Byron and Ross Chastain.

Amazingly van Gisbergen did not do a qualifying run in practice and knew he had to make a significant improvement from his first lap to take pole from the #24.

“No, I don’t think anyone really did,” SVG said on quali runs in practice. 

“We all just did long runs. People probably could have pushed more in practice, but we were trying to see what the tire would do.

“I thought it could be faster. And then in the first group, we saw big gains on people on their second run. I think the 24 made a huge jump, which is pretty abnormal, I think, on these tires, especially this new soft tire. “Just tried again. I struggled… my first lap was just a banker almost, like I still had a little bit left. That second lap was really good.”

Van Gisbergen could become the first driver ever to record the full weekend sweep of pole and victory twice in the single season this weekend.

He revealed the challenge of taking on the twisty road course in California is massively different between the Cup and Xfinity Series.

“They’re quite different in the way the cars make their speed and the platform of the car,” he said. 

“But yeah, it felt really slippery. I sort of saw that in group one. A lot of people were having big lap time fall off and struggling with the rear, in particular. 

“I tried to manage my practice. I started slow and tried to keep it at consistent speed. My car was very, very average actually, so we can make it better for tomorrow. But then in qualifying on the new tires, it was great.”

The Toyota Save Mart 350 coverage begins at 5.00 AEST Monday morning on Fox Sports 506/Kayo, while van Gisbergen is chasing Xfinity Series victory right now.

Toyota Save Mart 350 Qualifying results

1. (88) Shane Van Gisbergen #, Chevrolet, 96.040 mph.

2. (19) Chase Briscoe, Toyota, 95.719 mph.

3. (24) William Byron, Chevrolet, 95.488 mph.

4. (1) Ross Chastain, Chevrolet, 95.409 mph.

5. (16) AJ Allmendinger, Chevrolet, 95.367 mph.

6. (54) Ty Gibbs, Toyota, 95.357 mph.

7. (12) Ryan Blaney, Ford, 95.350 mph.

8. (45) Tyler Reddick, Toyota, 95.296 mph.

9. (48) Alex Bowman, Chevrolet, 95.224 mph.

10. (20) Christopher Bell, Toyota, 95.212 mph.

11. (5) Kyle Larson, Chevrolet, 95.198 mph.

12. (38) Zane Smith, Ford, 95.167 mph.

13. (9) Chase Elliott, Chevrolet, 95.161 mph.

14. (17) Chris Buescher, Ford, 95.047 mph.

15. (71) Michael McDowell, Chevrolet, 95.003 mph.

16. (11) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, 94.967 mph.

17. (8) Kyle Busch, Chevrolet, 94.919 mph.

18. (42) John Hunter Nemechek, Toyota, 94.866 mph.

19. (99) Daniel Suarez, Chevrolet, 94.808 mph.

20. (60) Ryan Preece, Ford, 94.776 mph.

21. (6) Brad Keselowski, Ford, 94.732 mph.

22. (22) Joey Logano, Ford, 94.726 mph.

23. (77) Carson Hocevar, Chevrolet, 94.679 mph.

24. (2) Austin Cindric, Ford, 94.594 mph.

25. (21) Josh Berry, Ford, 94.467 mph.

26. (10) Ty Dillon, Chevrolet, 94.222 mph.

27. (41) Cole Custer, Ford, 94.112 mph.

28. (35) Riley Herbst #, Toyota, 93.949 mph.

29. (7) Justin Haley, Chevrolet, 93.929 mph.

30. (23) Bubba Wallace, Toyota, 93.923 mph.

31. (43) Erik Jones, Toyota, 93.896 mph.

32. (4) Noah Gragson, Ford, 93.894 mph.

33. (3) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 93.695 mph.

34. (47) Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Chevrolet, 93.497 mph.

35. (34) Todd Gilliland, Ford, 93.364 mph.

36. (51) Cody Ware, Ford, 92.465 mph.

37. (78) Katherine Legge, Chevrolet, 0.000 mph.

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