In real time, immediately after the race last weekend at Sonoma Raceway, the disappointment from Ty Gibbs was palpable.
He finished third, but after sweeping both stages it was a fair expectation to have wanted more. Shane Van Gisbergen won but earned track position by giving up points in exchange for track position in flipping both stages.
As it turns out, SVG scored the most points anyway in winning the race but Gibbs scored the second most in finishing third. The decision made was to ensure that no matter what happened in the final stage, Gibbs could bank 20 points, important because he is fourth in the standings, in prime position to make a championship run this autumn.
However, he was visibly frustrated and said they were on ‘the wrong strategy’ in not being able to ever directly take the fight to Van Gisbergen.
But nearly a week later, Gibbs said he was bought into the bigger picture.
“I mean, it was a great points day, right,” Gibbs said. “Being in the top-five in points is super important going into the playoffs and so I think, it’s just sometimes what it is.”
Did he need to be convinced?
“I’d rather win a championship than a road course race so we made a decision from that one,” Gibbs said.
And make no mistake, Gibbs feels like he is an emerging championship threat come the Chase for the Championship.
“I think we’re easily a championship contender,” Gibbs said. “I’m very happy where we are but I need to stick to it and keep working hard. We’ve had some bad weekends where we’ve gotten wrecked but we haven’t had a lot of weekends where we just were slow.”
