The NASCAR Cup Series the O’Reilly Series at Sonoma Raceway this weekend. This will make two races in a row on road courses for both series. It will also mark the half-way point of the 2026 season, once the race is completed Sunday. The Cup Series race moves from Prime Video to TNT this weekend, so make sure you have the right channel on Sunday. The practice and qualifying for the Cup Series is on TruTV.
Here is the schedule for the on-track activity at Sonoma Raceway this weekend…
Friday (June 26th) 4 p.m. ET: O’Reilly Series Practice
Friday (June 26th) 5 p.m. ET: Cup O’Reilly Qualifying
Saturday (June 27th) 2 ET: Cup Series Practice
Saturday (June 27th) 3 p.m. ET: Cup Series Qualifying
Saturday (June 27th) 5:30 ET: O’Reilly Series Race
Sunday (June 28th) 3:30 p.m. ET: Cup Series Race
FANTASY STATS FOR SONOMA
The Cup Series has had three races on road courses this year (COTA, Watkins Glen and Navy Base Coronado). Sonoma Raceway is different from those tracks, but we can still use the stats from those races to figure out who the best drivers on the road courses has been this year. I will combine the stats with those three races with the stats from the last three races at Sonoma Raceway to show who has been good on the road courses and who has been good in wine country.
Here are the stats from the races at road course tracks this year and the last three races at Sonoma Raceway, sorted by Driver Rating…
SONOMA RACE REWIND
This is the part of the article where I break down the race from last year at the track that the Cup Series is racing at this week. The Sonoma Race Rewind turned into the “Shane van Gisbergen Show.” He absolutely destroyed the field last year in wine country. SVG won the pole, led 97 of 110 laps, finished 2nd in Stage 1, won Stage 2 and won the race. The only reason SVG did not lead every lap is because he gave up track position to short pit before the end of the Stage. His Driver Rating at Sonoma is 50 points higher than any driver in the field.
The drivers competing for second-place included Chase Briscoe, Chase Elliott, William Byron, Christopher Bell and Michael McDowell. The rest of the field was simply logging laps.
You can watch the highlights of last year’s race here: 2025 Toyota Save Mart 350
EARLY WEEK DRIVER RANKINGS
I used the stats from the road course races this year and the stats from the last three races at Sonoma Raceway for the driver rankings this year. There is no need to make this race more complicated than it needs to be. There are a handful of drivers who typically finish up front at the road course tracks. These drivers should run well at Sonoma Sunday.
Here is the early week Driver Rankings for the race at Sonoma Raceway….
* These rankings will be updated after the qualifying session is completed Saturday.
STRATEGY FOR SONOMA
SEASON-LONG GAME STRATEGY: The strategy for the race at Sonoma Raceway is the same as the strategy for the other road course races. We only get 9-10 allocations with our drivers in most of our season-long Fantasy NASCAR games. We need to use the drivers who are “road course experts” (Shane van Gisbergen, AJ Allmendinger, Michael McDowell, Connor Zilisch, Chris Buescher….) and save out top drivers (Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick…) for the more predictable tracks. The hardest driver to make a decision with this week should be Reddick. He is typically really good on the road courses, but he is also a top-three driver on the intermediate tracks. It would be a good idea to save Reddick for the more predictable races, unless you have many allocations left with the No. 45 car.
DFS GAME STRATEGY: The race Sunday is scheduled for 110 laps (218.9 miles). That means there are 27.5 points available for leading laps and 49.5 points available for fastest laps (77 dominator points). That is a lot more dominator points than what we had last week at Navy Base Coronado. We typically have one dominator in the winning lineup at Sonoma.
EARLY WEEK BEST BETS FOR SONOMA
I did not want to bet against Shane van Gisbergen last week and I am not sure I want to bet against him at Sonoma. The odds for SVG are -150. They likely will not go much lower after practice and qualifying, so there is no need to wager on the No. 97 car now. I plan to wait until after qualifying this week to decide if I want to go all in with SVG, sit this race out or take a chance with some other drivers. If you want to bet some drivers before the cars hit the track, here are the drivers I recommend wagering on….
MICHAEL MCDOWELL (15-1): McDowell is one of the best road course drivers in the Cup Series. He told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio last week, “We should have beat SVG last year in Chicago. We had the faster car. We also had the speed to run with him at Watkins Glen. We are not that far behind SVG. We just need to execute our races better.” McDowell is not lying. He did have similar speed to SVG in those races. He has also be fantastic at Sonoma. McDowell finished 3rd at Sonoma in 2022, 7th in 2023, 2nd in 2024 and 3rd last year. That is a lot of success for a driver with 15-1 odds.
CHRIS BUESCHER (22-1): Buescher look just as fast as SVG last week. Was SVG sandbagging? Probably, but Buescher has had the talent and the speed to run up front on the road course tracks. He finished 2nd at Sonoma in 2022, 4th in 2023 and 3rd in 2024. If he keeps knocking on Victory Lane’s door, sooner or later it is going to open. 22-1 odds are just ridiculous for a driver with stats like Buescher on the road course tracks.
CHASE ELLIOTT (35-1): Did I read this right? 35-1 on Elliott to win at his best road course track? Elliott said last week that his team is having a hard time figuring out this new tire on the road courses. The No. 5 team seems to have figured it out last week and that information should be passed over to the No. 9 team. If Elliott is ever going to figure out this tire and the new Chevy Chassis, it will be at Sonoma. He finished 3rd last year at Sonoma, 4th in 2024 and 5th in 2023. Not bad for a driver with 35-1 odds.
* I may add a one or two drivers to the card that I think are Best Bets after qualifying Saturday.
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