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The 16th race of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season will take place this Sunday afternoon at the Sonoma Raceway and it will be the second time the drivers of the Cup Series will take on the challenges of road course racing. This weekend’s race will be the last race broadcasted on FOX this year as NBC will take over coverage in two weeks at Nashville. Here are some storylines and drivers to keep an eye on when the green flag flies in Wine Country.
Daniel Suarez won his first career Cup race at Sonoma last year, leading 47 laps in total and it also clinched him his first ever playoff berth during his career best season. This season has been a bit more of a struggle for Suarez, as he is winless and he has only posted one top-five finish so far. Suarez comes into this weekend only six points above the playoff cutline so repeating at Sonoma would help take the pressure off of the entire #99 team.
This upcoming race at Sonoma will also mark the return of Chase Elliott to the driver’s seat as he was suspended for last weekend’s race at Gateway for crashing Denny Hamlin in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte two races ago. Elliott has missed seven races so far this season due to the suspension and a leg injury he sustained while snowboarding after the Fontana race. The 2020 Cup Series champion is most likely in a must win situation now since he is 98 points below Suarez in the standings with 11 races left before the playoffs. Since he is arguably the best road course racer in the Cup Series today, he will definitely be one to watch the entire weekend.
Elliott’s teammate Kyle Larson is another driver that should be in contention for the win this Sunday as he won at Sonoma in 2021 and won at Watkins Glen last year in the Next Gen car, while holding off Elliott during a late race restart. Larson’s season has been very inconsistent so far, highlighted by his wins at Richmond, Martinsville, and North Wilkesboro in the All-Star Race but marred by his 5 DNFs, all due to crashes. If Larson can stay out of trouble, he should be near the front of the field contending for the win with his elite road course skills he has shown off recently.
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Another driver who has turned into an elite road course racer is Tyler Reddick, the winner at Circuit of the Americas this year and at Road America last year. Reddick has had a pretty solid start to this tenure at 23XI Racing and Toyota, as he is locked into the playoffs with the win he got and he sits in a tie for ninth place in the regular season standings with Larson. Reddick will look to bounce back after a crash relegated him to a 35th place finish at Gateway last week and Sonoma might be the perfect track for him to have a solid run.
There are also a couple of longshots that I wanted to mention and they happen to be all Ford drivers and these three drivers are Chris Buescher, Michael McDowell, and Austin Cindric. Buescher won the Bristol Night Race last year despite not making the playoffs but this year, he has been very consistent and is going into Sonoma up 80 points on Suarez and he finished second to Suarez in last year’s race at Sonoma. Buescher is a very underrated driver on road courses so it would not shock me to see him end up in the top ten or top five at the end of the day.
Michael McDowell and Austin Cindric are two drivers outside the playoffs right now but have the reputations of being road courses aces. McDowell finished third at Sonoma last year behind Suarez and Buescher and is coming off a ninth place finish at Gateway last week.
Cindric, on the other hand, is in his second full-time season in the Cup Series and his average finish on road courses since going full-time is an impressive 8.9. It’s fair to call Cindric’s season so far a sophomore slump but Sonoma is a place where he can start a hot streak.
A couple of other storylines to note, Noah Gragson will miss the race this weekend because of concussion-like symptoms he sustained in his hard crash at Gateway and Grant Enfinger, a Truck Series regular, will fill in for him and it will be Enfinger’s first career Cup Series start.
Gragson’s teammate Erik Jones also has had a bad week as the #43 team was penalized 60 points and five playoff points for a greenhouse modification made to his car last week at Gateway, which was found during inspection at the R&D Center. Jones dropped to 30th in the standings as a result and Gragson is currently 32nd in the standings and will not earn any points this week while sitting out with his injury.
This weekend’s race at Sonoma will also be the second road course race to have no stage cautions since stage racing began in 2017. There are a lot of talented road course racers in the Cup Series garage today so the race this Sunday should be a battle until the very end.
