Just as NASCAR fans have all come to expect, Trackhouse Racing's Shane van Gisbergen was dominant in the latest road course race at Sonoma Raceway, and he collected his third win in the last five weeks on Sunday afternoon.
Though some fans will foolishly claim he doesn't "deserve" to be in the playoffs, despite the fact that he has more than earned his spot at this point, the driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet is now tied for the series lead in wins through 20 races in 2025. Three other drivers have won three races this year, and nobody has won more.
Van Gisbergen has also collected wins at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez and the Chicago Street Course.
But you could make a very strong case that he wasn't the biggest winner of Sunday's 110-lap Toyota/Save Mart 350 around the 12-turn, 1.99-mile (3.203-kilometer) Sonoma, California road course like he was in each of his other two wins over the last month.
SVG not the biggest NASCAR winner at Sonoma
Van Gisbergen's first win of the year in Mexico was obviously a huge deal, as it launched him from 33rd in the point standings, well below the playoff cut line, into the provisional 16-driver playoff picture. However, he wasn't yet technically locked into the playoffs, since there could be more than 16 regular season race winners, and it all but goes without saying that van Gisbergen still wasn't exactly in a good points position (31st) at that point.
The 16 playoff spots go to the regular season champion, the multi-race winners, and then the single-race winners. If there are more winners than playoff spots, the tiebreaker among the single-race winners to determine who gets in and who doesn't becomes points. If there aren't enough winners to fill the playoff field, the remaining playoff spots are awarded to non-winners, again based on points.
With the regular season having no way to produce more than 13 multi-race winners, van Gisbergen's Chicago win last weekend is what officially locked him into the playoffs. His Sonoma win was just icing on the cake, and while that icing produced another six playoff points to make him the provisional No. 3 seed in the 16-driver field, he needs to make significant improvements on ovals in order for those extra points to matter much, especially since the round of 16 is set to feature races at Darlington Raceway, World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, and Bristol Motor Speedway.
That's why the real big winners of Sunday afternoon's race were the drivers who finished in 13th and 30th place: Wood Brothers Racing's Josh Berry and Team Penske's Austin Cindric, respectively.
There have been 12 winners so far in 2025, and with six races left on the regular season schedule, the door is still open for there to be more than 16 winners before the playoffs start, in which case the lowest single-race winners in the point standings would risk missing out on the postseason.
But as a road course race, Sunday's race at Sonoma was viewed as a golden opportunity for a lot of drivers aiming for their first win of the year.
It didn't happen.
The chances of the regular season ending with 16 or more winners are much lower now than they were before van Gisbergen's current two-race win streak, and that is music to the ears of Berry and Cindric, who are currently the lowest two single-race winners in the point standings by a considerable margin.
Had NASCAR left Sonoma with 14 or even 13 different winners, that may have been a different story.
Cindric, who won at Talladega Superspeedway, finds himself in 20th place, just ahead of Berry, who won at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, in 21st. The next lowest is Team Penske's Joey Logano, who won at Texas Motor Speedway, and he is all the way up in 11th.
Suffice it to say that, in the event that the regular season ends with more than 16 winners, Cindric and Berry would not be in desirable positions at all. Now, however, it may really be safe to say that they are indeed safe.
Yes, there are seven full-time drivers who won last year but haven't yet won this year, and yes there is still a road course race at Watkins Glen International and a superspeedway race at Daytona International Speedway remaining on this year's regular season calendar.
However, the odds of new winners emerging at those two tracks, along with three of the other four ovals remaining on the regular season schedule, are extremely long.
Thanks to another SVG win on Sunday, Cindric and Berry can really start to feel good about things as the playoffs approach.
Race number 21 on the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400, which is set to be shown live on TNT Sports from Dover Motor Speedway beginning at 2:00 p.m. ET this Sunday, July 20. Joe Gibbs Racing's Denny Hamlin, a three-time winner so far in 2025, won this race when it was contested in April 2024.