SONOMA >> Rookie Shane van Gisbergen continued his dominating road course success Sunday in the Toyota/SaveMart 350 with a near wire-to-wire run at Sonoma Raceway for his third NASCAR Cup Series win of the season.

The New Zealand native started from the pole and led 97 of 110 laps but had to hold off Chase Briscoe at the finish for his second win in two weeks and fourth of his career since his victorious debut at the inaugural Chicago Street Race in 2023.

“We’ve really started getting better and better,” van Gisbergen said. “So, it’s four wins for us now as a team and it’s been an amazing turnaround for everyone. I’m not under any illusion we’re going to go back next week (at Dover) and win, though, I’d like to keep that progression going.”

Van Gisbergen is the first NASCAR driver to win three road and street course races from the pole in a row since Jeff Gordon accomplished the feat 26 years ago between 1998-99. Van Gisbergen’s other two wins this season came at Mexico City’s road course on June 15 and last week on a street course in Chicago. There is one more road course left on the Cup Series schedule when drivers head to Watkins Glen International on August 10.

Van Gisbergen is earning accolades at home and abroad, and drawing comparisons to countryman and past IndyCar champion Scott Dixon, who finished second Sunday at Iowa Speedway. Van Gisbergen is the fastest NASCAR driver to four wins since Parnelli Jones in 1969.

Van Gisbergen pitted his Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet with 27 laps remaining, surrendering the lead, but fought back to pass Michael McDowell with 19 laps left to put the field in his rear view. What had been a relatively clean race took on a tense feeling toward the end with a pair of late cautions that forced van Gisbergen to outduel his rivals on restarts and eventually set up a four-lap dash to the finish between van Gisbergen, Briscoe and third-place finisher Chase Elliott.

“All those people up front there — it was (Briscoe, Elliott, William Byron) I think we were racing — and those are great guys to race,” van Gisbergen said. “I always race well with them and enjoy racing them. I knew Chase wasn’t going to do anything stupid, but he got really close in Turn 2 a couple of times.”

Van Gisbergen nudged ahead of Briscoe as the climbed up the hill through Turn 1 after the green flag dropped and then, as he did all day, proceeded to open up a solid lead.

“It was tough,” van Gisbergen said. “The soft tires leave so many marbles around the track, and you’re trying to be respectful when you’re going two-wide, but you end up pushing each other into the marbles, even though you’re trying not to. It was really slippery.”

The first caution for incident came relatively late in the race, not until the 61st lap. The race was not without incidents, though, including some serious door banging through the road course’s infamous turns.

In one of the more notable exchanges, members of the pit crews of Brad Keselowski and Ty Gibbs nearly came to blows after Gibbs drove through No. 6 Ford’s pit stall and narrowly missed one of Keslowski’s crew members, who was already in place waiting for Keselowski to pit right behind Gibbs. No one was injured and NASCAR found there was no cause for punitive action.

The track took its toll on the cars as tire wear was a factor from the start of the race. Drivers had been grumbling all weekend about the slick track conditions. Local favorite AJ Allmendinger of Los Gatos, one of the road course specialists expected to challenge van Gisbergen, started fifth but his car never found the groove and eventually fell off to finish 18th.

McDowell, Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick, Gibbs, Byron, Joey Logano and two-time Sonoma winner Kyle Busch rounded out the top 10.

Byron picked up 36 crucial points and leads the season standings by 14 points over Elliott, who posted his seventh top-10 finish at Sonoma.