Shane van Gisbergen's O'Reilly win at Sonoma is a case of pace management

There didn't seem to be much of a doubt that Shane van Gisbergen would win Saturday's NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Sonoma, even once a fellow road course ace in Connor Zilisch got to second in the closing laps and began laying down some of the fastest laps of the afternoon. 

"He obviously got there in Stage 2, and I kind of had a bit of a feel of what pace he had," said van Gisbergen, who led 66 of the race's 79 laps. "Stage 3 was an unknown. I felt like I had him covered. They were giving me his lap times every lap, and I'm like, 'Okay, he backed off,' and I kind of matched my pace. [Spotter Brandon McReynolds] would say, 'He's six-tenths faster that lap.'"

"Little bugger, he's picked it up. And I had to go faster again. Kind of just trying to match the gap in the mirror. I tried to just manage my fuel the whole run and keep my pace even."

Van Gisbergen saved fuel for much of the final run to the checkered flag, though he didn't start ceding chunks of time to Zilisch until the final five laps. Van Gisbergen only won the race by 1.324 seconds, but stretched his lead to nearly five seconds at various points during the final stretch. 

Van Gisbergen will start sixth in Sunday's Cup race at Sonoma as he looks for his second win of 2026 and his second in two tries at the California road course. 

Quotes provided by NASCAR Media.