What to watch for in today's NASCAR Cup race at Sonoma

For the second weekend in a row, NASCAR Cup drivers will be racing on a road course. They’ll compete today at the 1.99-mile Sonoma Raceway.

Here are a few things to watch.

Seeking to tie a Hall of Famer

Shane van Gisbergen seeks to tie Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon’s record for three consecutive Cup road course victories from the pole. Gordon did it from 1998-99.

“We’ve had a really cool couple of weeks,” van Gisbergen said after winning the pole for today’s race. “You just feel the energy in the shop when you walk in on Monday and Tuesday. Even the stay-at-home guys and girls preparing the cars -- it’s just a cool atmosphere in the shop. Everyone’s lifted up. 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.”

The race in Northern California will be held in July for the first time.

Already this season, van Gisbergen has won at Mexico and Chicago from the pole. He ranks second in the series in average finish (9.8) on road courses in the Next Gen era.

“He’s so good, and it’s rare that you see somebody stand out and distance himself from the competition as much as he is,” Larson said about van Gisbergen. “You know, he’s way, way, way better than us at the road course stuff.

“And he’s got his own technique, you can call it. Not his own because the rest of the world does it – you know, right-foot braking, clutching and all that stuff. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks … like there’s zero chance I can learn how to do that. And even if I did, like there’s zero chance that I can have it be better than what I’m probably doing with left-foot braking.”

What’s up with Kyle Larson?

The Hendrick Motorsports driver who won last year’s race at Sonoma has not led in the last six races. It’s the longest stretch he’s gone in Cup without leading a lap since the end of the 2019 and beginning of the 2020 seasons when he also went six races without leading a lap.

Larson has not had much success on road courses this season. He finished 13th at Chicago, placed 36th after his car was damaged in an early accident triggered by Kyle Busch at Mexico and was 32nd at Circuit of the Americas after being issued a two-lap penalty for a wheel coming off his car.

Shane van Gisbergen scores his third pole of the season and fourth of his Cup career.

Larson has three top-10 finishes in his last seven races.

“You know, just on paper, it looks like we’re just very average, which we have been,” Larson said Saturday at Sonoma of his recent stretch of races. “But, you know, we’ve taken days where we’ve been not a top-10 car and finished in the top-10 or even top five.

“Those days, although they’re not fun, they are rewarding at the end of it because I think, a lot of times in my past, I’ll try even too hard and make big mistakes and crash, which I’ve done that here lately some also. But, yeah, I don’t know. We just haven’t been as strong as we’ve wanted to be here lately.

“We’ve gone to some tracks where when you look at results from the past, we haven’t been quite competitive or have race winning speed and it’s kind of carried over to this year at some of those places too.”

Points races tighten

The points race for the regular season championship and for the final playoff spot have tightened.

At the top of the standings, William Byron has seen his points lead shrink from 67 to 13 in the last three races. Byron has finished no better than 27th in the past three races.

RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher has scored three consecutive top-five finishes at Sonoma Raceway.

He enters today’s race 13 points ahead of teammate Chase Elliott and 19 points ahead of teammate Kyle Larson. Denny Hamlin trails Byron by 43 points and Tyler Reddick is 48 points from the top of the standings.

There have been 12 different winners this season, leaving four playoff spots via points at this time. Bubba Wallace holds the final playoff spot. He’s two points ahead of Ryan Preece, who gained 21 points on Wallace last weekend at Chicago. AJ Allmendinger is next, 43 points below the cutline. Kyle Busch is 46 points below the cutline.