PJ Hyett and AO Racing took pole for Sunday’s Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park for the second year in a row, this time in dramatic fashion.

Barrier repairs caused by an accident during the preceding Michelin Pilot Challenge race delayed qualifying by 10 minutes, but it was worth the wait.

Hyett was held up slightly by a local yellow at the final turn, but he had time for just one more flying lap. The 2024 LMP2 pole sitter drove “Spike the LMP2 Dragon,” the No. 99 ORECA 07-Gibson, to the top spot with a 1m08.888s lap, snatching pole from United Autosports’ Dan Goldburg right at the buzzer.

The AO Racing crew becomes the first repeat pole winner in four LMP2 races, following his run at Watkins Glen. Goldburg, the race winner at Watkins Glen and the current LMP2 points leader, will line up second after setting a 1m08.986s.

He was also embroiled in the late drama – the No. 22 United ORECA 07 made contact with the No. 8 Tower Motorsports car of John Farano at Turn 11 and sent Farano spinning around. The Canadian driver was able to avoid bringing out a red flag by getting his car back on track.

Steven Thomas, who suffered an early crash in the first practice session of the weekend, qualified third in the No. 11 TDS Racing ORECA. Jeremy Clarke had his own issues in qualifying, spinning at Turn 2 and backing the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition car into the tires. With only minor damage and a solid lap already on the board, he’ll start fourth in Sunday’s race, ahead of the No. 04 Crowdstrike Racing by APR, No. 73 Pratt Miller Motorsports, and No. 2 United Autosports USA cars.

Neil Verhagen and Paul Miller Racing took their first GTD PRO pole of the season – a first for the No. 1 BMW M4 GT3 EVO. A lap time of 1m15.046s from the American-born, European-trained driver was enough for him to win the pole by nearly 0.3s.

The No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3 of Aaron Telitz will occupy the outside of the GT front row, setting a 1m15.309s to take a front row spot away from the No. 3 Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R. The two works Corvette Racing cars will start side-by-side on row two – Garcia in the championship-leading No. 3 in third ahead of the No. 4 of Tommy Milner.

Dan Harper in the No. 48 Paul Miller BMW rounded out the top five, sharing the third row with local favorites Pfaff Motorsports and the No. 9 Lamborghini of Andrea Caldarelli.

Vasser Sullivan Racing’s strong form also netted a GTD pole position for Jack Hawksworth in the No. 12 Lexus, his first of the season individually and the second straight pole in Canada for this car, which won the pole last year in the hands of Frankie Montecalvo. It’s also the second pole of the year for the No. 12 Lexus – co-driver Parker Thompson won the pole at Long Beach earlier this year.

Hawksworth set a 1m15.305s to drop the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Russell Ward out of the top spot by just 0.014s. Hawksworth then gained 0.2s on his next flying lap, securing the top spot with a 1m15.101s. Ward pushed until the final seconds of the GTD session, but would not improve from his 1m15.319s – he’ll start second.

Robert Wickens put in a solid effort to qualify third in the No. 36 DXDT Racing Corvette. Using specially-developed hand controls, Wickens set a 1m15.876 to put the Corvette on the second row.

After Casper Stevenson’s accident during the middle of practice two Saturday morning, the English driver turned things around and qualified the repaired No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 fourth on the GTD grid.

RESULTS

The NASCAR Cup Series has left the streets of Chicago behind after a dominant weekend from Trackhouse Racing’s Shane van Gisbergen. He earned his second win of the year after sweeping the pole positions and the race wins in both the Xfinity and Cup Series events.

AO Racing owner/driver PJ Hyett turned a lap at 128.504 mph Saturday (July 12) to win the overall pole for Sunday’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. It is Hyett’s second straight pole at CTMP and his sixth career class pole.

“It’s a wonderful thing,” Hyett said afterwards. “These P2 cars and I just get along really well. I absolutely love driving this car and I love putting it on pole for the team who works so hard behind the scenes to make it fast like that.”

Hyett won the pole by .098 seconds over United Autosports’ Dan Goldburg. TDS Racing’s Steven Thomas will start third, followed by Inter Europol Competition’s Jeremy Clarke. CrowdStrike Racing by APR’s George Kurtz was fifth.

In the session, Riley Motorsports’ Gar Robinson was quickest early on before Clarke put his yellow and green ORECA 07-Gibson on top. Hyett was able to overtake Clarke and put himself on top.

Goldburg was able to drop the quick time down into the 68-second bracket with eight minutes to go. At the time, he was a third of a second ahead of Hyett and thought that he couldn’t be beat. So, he pitted with six minutes to go and let the other 11 drivers try to beat him.

Clarke’s session came to an end early when he spun in turn 2 and backed lightly into the tires. The red flag did not come out, but Clarke’s car was damaged.

Later on, Tower Motorsports’ John Farano spun and hit the tires exiting turn 10 after contact from United Autosports’ Phil Fayer. He was able to pull away as well, but suffered rear wing damage.

Hyett chose to pit for a fresh tires of tires, potentially compromising his race since LMP2 teams only get four sets of tires for qualifying and the race. Despite Farano’s spin right at the start of the lap, Hyett was a

GTD Pro saw Paul Miller Racing’s BMWs come to the front. Dan Harper put himself on top five minutes into the session. That time was quickly beaten by Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports’ Antonio Garcia.

Shortly afterwards, Harper’s teammate Neil Verhagen put down a lap at 117.960 mph, the fastest GT lap of the weekend. From then on, everyone tried their best to beat Verhagen, but could not keep the BMW racer from taking the class pole.

Verhagen’s lap was .263 seconds faster than Vasser Sullivan’s Aaron Telitz. Garcia will start third in class, followed by teammate Tommy Milner. Harper was fifth.

In GTD, Gradient Racing’s Jenson Altzman was fastest early on before Wright Motorsports’ Elliott Skeer usurped him. Skeer ended up topping out six minutes into the session with a lap at 115.881 mph, but the times continued to tumble.

Winward Racing’s Russell Ward dropped the pole into the 75-second bracket and improved to a lap at 117.532 mph. Then, Jack Hawksworth entered the picture.

Over the past few years, Hawksworth has been one of the fastest GT drivers in single-lap pace. On Saturday, he was able to wring out a lap to take the provisional pole with six minutes to go.

A couple of laps later, Hawksworth set a lap at 117.873 mph. That lap held up for the class pole.

Hawksworth ended up .218 seconds ahead of Ward. DXDT Racing’s Robert Wickens will start third in his Corvette, while The Heart of Racing’s Casper Stevenson was fourth. Wayne Taylor Racing’s Danny Formal was fifth.

The Chevrolet Grand Prix is scheduled to go green at 2:05 p.m. ET Sunday afternoon. Coverage will air live at 2 p.m. ET on USA Network and on Peacock.

Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He’s the manager of the site’s FREE e-mail newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the site’s Sports Car racing editor.

Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.

For the second weekend in a row, NASCAR Cup drivers will be racing on a road course. They’ll compete today at the 1.99-mile Sonoma Raceway.

Here are a few things to watch.

Seeking to tie a Hall of Famer

Shane van Gisbergen seeks to tie Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon’s record for three consecutive Cup road course victories from the pole. Gordon did it from 1998-99.

“We’ve had a really cool couple of weeks,” van Gisbergen said after winning the pole for today’s race. “You just feel the energy in the shop when you walk in on Monday and Tuesday. Even the stay-at-home guys and girls preparing the cars — it’s just a cool atmosphere in the shop. Everyone’s lifted up. Ross (Chastain’s) win kind of started it at the Coke 600, and we just got better and better. So yeah, it’s really cool for everyone.”

The race in Northern California will be held in July for the first time.

Already this season, van Gisbergen has won at Mexico and Chicago from the pole. He ranks second in the series in average finish (9.8) on road courses in the Next Gen era.

“He’s so good, and it’s rare that you see somebody stand out and distance himself from the competition as much as he is,” Larson said about van Gisbergen. “You know, he’s way, way, way better than us at the road course stuff.

“And he’s got his own technique, you can call it. Not his own because the rest of the world does it – you know, right-foot braking, clutching and all that stuff. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks … like there’s zero chance I can learn how to do that. And even if I did, like there’s zero chance that I can have it be better than what I’m probably doing with left-foot braking.”

What’s up with Kyle Larson?

The Hendrick Motorsports driver who won last year’s race at Sonoma has not led in the last six races. It’s the longest stretch he’s gone in Cup without leading a lap since the end of the 2019 and beginning of the 2020 seasons when he also went six races without leading a lap.

Larson has not had much success on road courses this season. He finished 13th at Chicago, placed 36th after his car was damaged in an early accident triggered by Kyle Busch at Mexico and was 32nd at Circuit of the Americas after being issued a two-lap penalty for a wheel coming off his car.

Shane van Gisbergen scores his third pole of the season and fourth of his Cup career.

Larson has three top-10 finishes in his last seven races.

“You know, just on paper, it looks like we’re just very average, which we have been,” Larson said Saturday at Sonoma of his recent stretch of races. “But, you know, we’ve taken days where we’ve been not a top-10 car and finished in the top-10 or even top five.

“Those days, although they’re not fun, they are rewarding at the end of it because I think, a lot of times in my past, I’ll try even too hard and make big mistakes and crash, which I’ve done that here lately some also. But, yeah, I don’t know. We just haven’t been as strong as we’ve wanted to be here lately.

“We’ve gone to some tracks where when you look at results from the past, we haven’t been quite competitive or have race winning speed and it’s kind of carried over to this year at some of those places too.”

Points races tighten

The points race for the regular season championship and for the final playoff spot have tightened.

At the top of the standings, William Byron has seen his points lead shrink from 67 to 13 in the last three races. Byron has finished no better than 27th in the past three races.

RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher has scored three consecutive top-five finishes at Sonoma Raceway.

He enters today’s race 13 points ahead of teammate Chase Elliott and 19 points ahead of teammate Kyle Larson. Denny Hamlin trails Byron by 43 points and Tyler Reddick is 48 points from the top of the standings.

There have been 12 different winners this season, leaving four playoff spots via points at this time. Bubba Wallace holds the final playoff spot. He’s two points ahead of Ryan Preece, who gained 21 points on Wallace last weekend at Chicago. AJ Allmendinger is next, 43 points below the cutline. Kyle Busch is 46 points below the cutline.

Connor Zilisch held off Shane van Gisbergen in what was a race-long battle between the two to win the Pit Boss/Food Maxx 250 NASCAR Xfinity Series event on July 12 at Sonoma Raceway.

The two JR Motorsports teammates traded the lead all day and were several seconds ahead of the rest of the top 10 all day, with Zilisch holding the lead throughout the final 30 laps.

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SVG gave Zilisch a bump or three in the final laps, but Zilisch blocked in the final two braking zones without too much physicality on the final lap to win the race.

Last week, SVG was able to work Zilisch over on the final restart to win at Chicago. But Zilisch did everything he could to keep SVG behind him on Saturday to earn his third win of the season.

Here are the full results for Saturday’s race:

Who won the NASCAR Xfinity Sonoma race? Winner, race results for Pit Boss/Food Maxx 250

Unofficial results from the NASCAR Xfinity Series race on July 12, 2025 at Sonoma Raceway.

1. Connor Zilisch, No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet

2. Shane van Gisbergen, No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet

3. William Sawalich, No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota

4. Nick Sanchez, No. 48 Big Machine Racing Chevrolet

5. Riley Herbst, No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota

6. Justin Allgaier, No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet

7. Taylor Gray, No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota

8. Carson Kvapil, No. 1 JR Motorsports Chevrolet

9. Sammy Smith, No. 8 JR Motorsports Chevrolet

10. Sheldon Creed, No. 00 Haas Factory Team Ford

11. Austin Green, No. 32 Jordan Anderson Racing Chevrolet

12. Austin Hill, No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet

13. Brandon Jones, No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota

14. Josh Bilicki, No. 91 DGM Racing Chevrolet

15. Josh Williams, No. 11 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet

16. Will Rodgers, No. 70 Cope Family Racing Chevrolet

17. Sam Mayer, No. 41 Haas Factory Team Ford

18. Dean Thompson, No. 26 Sam Hunt Racing Toyota

19. Blaine Perkins, No. 31 Jordan Anderson Racing Chevrolet

20. Jeb Burton, No. 27 Jordan Anderson Racing Chevrolet

21. Harrison Burton, No. 25 AM Racing Ford

22. Brennan Poole, No. 44 Alpha Prime Racing Chevrolet

23. Anthony Alfredo, No. 42 Young’s Motorsports Chevrolet

24. Corey Day, No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet

25. Kyle Sieg, No. 28 RSS Racing Ford

26. Matt DiBenedetto, No. 99 Viking Motorsports Chevrolet

27. Ryan Ellis, No. 71 DGM Racing Chevrolet

28. Parker Retzlaff, No. 4 Alpha Prime Racing Chevrolet

29. Kris Wright, No. 5 Our Motorsports Chevrolet

30. Jeremy Clements, No. 51 Jeremy Clements Racing Chevrolet (-1 lap down)

31. Brad Perez, No. 45 Alpha Prime Racing Chevrolet (-1)

32. Daniel Dye, No. 10 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet (-1)

33. Connor Mosack, No. 14 SS Green Light Racing Chevrolet (-2)

34. Christian Eckes, No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet (-3)

35. Ryan Sieg, No. 39 RSS Racing Ford (-3)

36. Sage Karam, No. 53 Joey Gase Motorsports Toyota (OUT)

37. Alex Labbe, No. 07 SS Green Light Racing Ford (OUT)

38. Jesse Love, No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet (OUT)

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: NASCAR Xfinity results at Sonoma: Connor Zilisch is winner Saturday