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Van Gisbergen on pole again after blazing lap at Sonoma
The NASCAR Cup Series field will begin its annual race at Sonoma Raceway as it ended last week in Chicago – with Shane van Gisbergen leading the way.
Van Gisbergen threw down a quick lap of 96.040mph (74.833s) to claim the pole for Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350. The result is the Kiwi’s third pole of 2025 and fourth overall. The prior two – in Mexico City and Chicago – both led to wins. It followed another pole run for Saturday’s Xfinity Series race.
“I’m shaking. That was pretty full-on,” van Gisbergen said of his run. “I’m stoked to have Red Bull on the car. Thank you to Trackhouse and Chevy. Amazing car.
“We weren’t very good in practice, but new tires fixed it. Hopefully we can be good in the race.”
The fast lap from van Gisbergen was the only one in the 96mph range. Chase Briscoe followed in second, leading Joe Gibbs Racing with a speed of 95.719mph. The top two both came from the second group in the session, which proved dominant overall.
William Byron was quickest in the opening group, laying down a blazing 75.025s lap at 95.488mph to slot over 0.3s clear of the other group qualifiers, but that only stood for third at session’s end. The next-fastest driver from the opening group, Michael McDowell, was slotted back in 15th, with only Daniel Suarez (19th) joining him in the top 20.
Ross Chastain (95.409mph) came home fourth, with AJ Allmendinger (95.367mph) rounding out the top five after topping the charts in practice. Ty Gibbs (95.357mph), Ryan Blaney (95.35mph), Tyler Reddick (95.296mph), Alex Bowman (95.224mph) and Christopher Bell (95.212mph) capped off the top 10. Bowman’s effort was overshadowed by a potential power steering issue that forced him to pit road mid-session.
There were no cautions during qualifying, but Blaney went for a spin in the closing moments of the second group session. Ty Dillon nearly suffered the same fate during his run but made the save after running wide.
Live Fast Motorsports’ Katherine Legge was the lone driver not to set a time during the session, opting not to run with concern over brake issues.
The Toyota/Save Mart 350 will go live Sunday at 3:30 p.m. ET. TNT and PRN will handle coverage, with in-car cameras available on the recently-rebranded HBO Max.
Aaron Bearden
Aaron is a homegrown Hoosier that grew up with a love of NASCAR, sprint cars and the Indy 500. He started writing about motorsports with a personal blog in 2014 and has covered racing independently in the years since. He writes a daily email newsletter that covers the entire motorsports industry.
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