Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson won for the second time in the past four races at Sonoma Raceway as he claimed the Toyota/Save Mart 350, Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series road-course event in Sonoma, Calif.
The Elk Grove, Calif., native notched his third 2024 win and 26th career by passing Martin Truex Jr. with nine laps to go after the Joe Gibbs Racing driver had just taken the lead from Chris Buescher.
The race ended under caution after Truex ran out of gas, tying the track record for yellows with the 1990 race.
Michael McDowell, Buescher, Chase Elliott and Ross Chastain rounded out the top-five positions.
To open the second road race of 2024 and 34th all-time at the Napa Valley track, polesitter Joey Logano led before seeing the initial yellow fly for Denny Hamlin after his engine expired, the first of multiple bad incidents for JGR.
After William Byron ran off the course in Turn 1 and came to pit road with tire problems, Ty Gibbs became JGR’s third driver to have issues when he smacked the Turn 1 wall on Lap 15 to force the second caution period.
After giving up the lead to pit, Logano restarted 21st and was involved in the third caution on Lap 19 when the spinning car of Chase Briscoe banged into the pole winner’s No. 22 Ford and had it hit again by Harrison Burton.
Tyler Reddick beat Ryan Blaney on a restart and crept away from the defending series champion to win the 25-lap first stage by 0.451 seconds, his third segment win this season.
A melee occurred in Turn 11 on Lap 36 when Josh Berry blocked Erik Jones. The cars of Truex, Brad Keselowski, Austin Dillon, Byron, Cam Waters and Christopher Bell were involved.
On the restart, last Sunday’s winner Austin Cindric, McDowell and Noah Gragson spun off the repaved track at high speed for the seventh yellow.
Buescher, who had pitted earlier, took the lead from Reddick and claimed his second stage win by beating Ryan Preece.
–Field Level Media
