Trackhouse crew chief says they were 'lucky' to have Van Gisbergen against faster JGR car

At Sonoma Raceway, Chase Briscoe nearly reached the back bumper of Shane van Gisbergen in the final corner of the race. Van Gisbergen held on, winning by just 0.357s — the closest margin of victory in any of his 14 NASCAR victories so far.

Trackhouse Racing’s Stephen Doran, who works with SVG as the No. 97 crew chief, asserted that they had the slower car in the closing laps, but SVG made up the difference.

“He (SVG) said when he went to go, he just didn’t have anything,” recalled Doran on Inside the Race. “He (SVG) said I don’t know if it’s because I got in a little bit of traffic behind the 7 [Daniel Suarez] and then the 51 [Cody Ware], and just warmed my tires up more than I had before, but he was like, ‘I’m telling you, I didn’t have anything else.’

“It’s lucky we had him (SVG), or I don’t think we win that race yesterday.”

In the post-race press conference at Sonoma, Doran expressed a similar sentiment, noting that the car wasn’t to Van Gisbergen’s liking all wekend.

“Yeah, thank God we have him, or we wouldn’t be here right now,” said Doran. “We did a lot of work overnight trying to get it better. I am still really not sure what it was that he didn’t like about it, but he, honestly, hated the car all weekend.

“I would say it was slightly better today, but still not great. Not as good as it was last year.”

Doran has been Van Gisbergen’s crew chief since the start of the 2025 season, winning seven Cup races together over the past two years. Van Gisbergen is now 14th in the championship standings, 36 points above the Chase cut-line.