After a dominant performance throughout the day, Martin Truex Jr. took the lead for the final time with 14 laps to go and then drove away to win the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway. Truex's win is the 33rd of his Cup career and fourth at Sonoma, moving him into sole possession of second on the track's all-time wins list behind Jeff Gordon's five Sonoma wins.
After taking the lead from teammate Denny Hamlin in Stage 2, Truex held the top spot throughout the bulk of Sunday's race and seldom relinquished it, with his only real challenge coming after a crash by Hamlin led to a yellow flag and alternate strategies. After lining up fourth on the final restart, Truex made quick work of Chase Elliott to take the lead back with 14 to go, then drove away from Kyle Busch over the final 10 laps to take the win.
Toyota/Save Mart 350 unofficial results
- #19 - Martin Truex Jr.
- #8 - Kyle Busch
- #22 - Joey Logano
- #17 - Chris Buescher
- #9 - Chase Elliott
- #16 - AJ Allmendinger
- #34 - Michael McDowell
- #5 - Kyle Larson
- #20 - Christopher Bell
- #1 - Ross Chastain
Truex's dominance as he led 51 of 110 laps was a performance befitting of the 2017 Cup Series champion, who has gotten back to his standard of performance after going through a winless season in 2022. Sonoma served to highlight that, as Truex returned to one of his best tracks a year after he and Joe Gibbs Racing as a whole struggled badly to perform well on road courses.
"Hats off to my team ... To be so bad here last year and to come back and do that with the same car basically, it's really unbelievable," Truex told Fox Sports. "Just proud of them. We're having a great year, I feel really good about our team ... This is why you go through years like we had last year. You keep fighting, you never give up on it, you always believe in each other. We haven't changed anything on our team other than parts and pieces, and it's just through a lot of hard work of a lot of people."
Truex's win makes him the new regular season points leader, as he capitalized on a major points day for himself combined with major troubles for Ryan Blaney, who earned no stage points and finished 31st after getting spun twice late in the race. Truex now leads the Cup Series standings by 13 points over William Byron, 24 points over Blaney and Ross Chastain, and 25 points over Kevin Harvick.
Truex's 33rd career win moves him out of a tiebreaker with Dale Jarrett and Joey Logano on NASCAR's all-time wins list and into another tiebreaker for 26th all-time. Truex's 33 wins now ties him with NASCAR Hall of Famer Fireball Roberts.
Pit Road Piques Interest
The green flag look of Sunday's race was largely attributable to the lack of stage cautions, which were eliminated on road courses in 2023 to allow for alternate strategies to play out more naturally. Although almost no one in the field could match Truex's pace once he set sail out front, certain drivers were able to use pit strategy to make up track position, such as when Hendrick Motorsports teammates Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson short pitted near the end of the first stage to make up time and track position on fresher tires to move into the top five.
Once Truex came to pit road on a cycle of green flag stops coming to 35 laps to go -- taking away any opportunity others like Michael McDowell and Chris Buescher would have had to pit earlier and make up time on the leader -- it appeared as if strategy would play no more role in Sunday's race. But that all changed with less than 20 laps to go when Denny Hamlin crashed on the frontstretch to bring out the second of only two cautions in the entire race.
Under the final caution, Elliott, Tyler Reddick and Ryan Blaney all elected to stay out, putting them at the front of the field ahead of Truex in fourth for the final restart with 15 laps to go. However, Truex would quickly dispose of them by taking the lead from Elliott with 14 to go, and Elliott would be the only driver to make his strategy work. Elliott would hang on for a fifth-place finish while Reddick and Blaney both had major issues -- a cut tire and two spins, respectively -- from falling back into traffic.
Race Results Rundown
- After finishing second at Sonoma in 2022, Chris Buescher followed up that performance with a strong day and a fourth-place finish, giving him his third top five and seventh top 10 of the season. Buescher has interestingly emerged as one of NASCAR's best on road courses, as he has a streak of seven-straight top 10s on road courses -- the longest active streak of any Cup driver.
- It was no surprise to see AJ Allmendinger up front at Sonoma, as the road course ace battled back from an untimely caution during his pit cycle to finish sixth. Allmendinger's sixth-place run marks his best finish of the entire season and his fourth top 15 in the last five races, despite his run today being only his second top 10 of the year.
- Of all cars in the field that didn't have an orange No. 19 on them, Michael McDowell had by far and away the fastest car among the rest of the field. McDowell was in position to score a top-five finish and potentially challenge Truex for the win when a botched final pit stop set him back to 13th for the final restart. McDowell would battle back to finish seventh, giving him his second top-10 finish in a row.
- A nice run and a controversy-free day for Ross Chastain aren't mutually exclusive things. Chastain kept his nose clean the entire race and got a 10th-place finish, snapping a streak of three-straight finishes outside the top 20.
- After dominating Friday's ARCA Menards Series West race, Ryan Preece parlayed his extra track time into a 13th-place finish on Sunday. That's Preece's third finish inside the top 15 in the last four races, and it continues an overall four-race stretch that has seen him finish no worse than 17th as he and his No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing team get back in the right direction after a tough start to 2023.
- Grant Enfinger was summoned from an off-weekend for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series to make his Cup Series debut as the substitute driver for Legacy Motor Club's No. 42, filling in for the injured Noah Gragson (concussion). Enfinger would have a nondescript but trouble-free day, finishing 26th.
Next Race
Father's Day Weekend will see the NASCAR Cup Series take its one and only off week of the 2023 season. Then, it's off to Music City and Nashville Superspeedway for the Ally 400 on June 25 at 7 p.m. ET on NBC.
