Coming out of Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway, some drivers are trending in the right direction while others are looking to quickly get out of dodge from Wine Country.
Zach Sturniolo of NASCAR.com highlighted a few drivers who fall into those respective categories, sans Kyle Larson who won his third race of the season at Sonoma. Sturniolo’s No. 1 driver trending in the up direction is Chris Buescher, who finished P3 at Sonoma.
Buescher desperately needed a good run following three straight uneven performances, and that’s exactly what he turned out Sunday. He led 32 laps and was out front for much of Stage 3. But with Larson on 13-lap fresher tires, Buescher lost the lead with less than 10 laps remaining. Buescher is the only driver to have top 5s in all three Next Gen races at Sonoma.
Chris Buescher picks up quality finish at Sonoma
“It was a really good day,” Buescher said after the race. “We knew it was going to be a tough one where we started. And just didn’t get to where we needed to yesterday. Ultimately my team did a great job on strategy, and I got the car a lot better. We were in a good place. Just needed a little bit more long run pace, maybe a little bit more spill together. I feel like I have a lot of things I would love to change now, knowing where we were at and then the laps we got on track. We didn’t get to that point in practice. So, that’s a good thing to sit here and not be stunned and confused on where the speed is at.
“I think we have a lot of good ideas. Proud of the day. If you would have told us at the beginning we could run third at one stage, we would have taken that. So, we should be happy, and we are. It’s a strong — just wanted a little bit more still.”
Another driver who helped himself at Sonoma was Michael McDowell, who finished runner-up to Larson. McDowell, winless on the season, moved up four spots in the points standings. And though his day was “ruined” by Ross Chastain on the final lap, Kyle Busch overall had a solid day of road course racing. He finished 12th, his best result since finishing P8 at Kansas last month.
Sonoma favorites struggle at newly paved road course
Among those who struggled at Sonoma was Joey Logano. The two-time Cup Series champion sat on the pole and led the first 16 laps but hit the pits on Lap 17 to get a jump on fuel strategy and never recovered. Two laps after pitting, he was involved in an accident and tallied a P21 finish.
“Unfortunate end to our weekend in Sonoma especially with the speed we showed the last two days,” Logano said. “Anything can happen on these restarts. And it was just wrong place, wrong time for us after trying to flip the strategy on everyone up front. Still proud of the effort from the 22 crew to keep after it all day long despite the early setback there.”
William Byron was expected to be a frontrunner at Sonoma, but that quickly went sideways. A flat rear tire forced him to pit road on Lap 13 and he was later involved in the Turn 11 pileup. A toe link on Byron’s suspension broke and he finished 30th.
Ty Gibbs, meanwhile, saw his race come to a premature end on Lap 16 after he made contact with the right-side concrete barriers in Turn 11. Gibbs was credited with 37th place out of 38 drivers in the field.
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