Kyle Busch finished second, while Ryan Newman, Matt Kenseth, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. rounded out the top five.

Carl Edwards held off a last lap charge from Jeff Gordon to win the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway.

NASCAR's senior director of communications Kerry Tharp denied that there was any "magic" to a 43-car grid, and also noted how well the sport had been progressing with an improvement in competition.

Keselowski was surprised by the performance, having stated that he "thought we were all gonna be a lot slower", and that he would "want to go out there" and achieve the victory.

Teammate Joey Logano joined Keselowski on the front row in a Team Penske lockout, in his 200th Cup start.

Prior to the caution, Matt Kenseth suffered a flat right-front tire, and had to pit from sixth position.

Logano and Keselowski swapped the lead positions once again, prior to the fourth caution, on lap 153, for a multi-car wreck on the backstretch involving Aric Almirola, Alex Bowman, Kasey Kahne and Jamie McMurray.

Bowman locked up his brakes and tires, causing a large cloud of smoke that made it difficult for trailing cars to see what was in front of them.

When the smoke cleared, Almirola swerved to his right to avoid Bowman, but in the process got into the left side of McMurray's car.

[16] Busch was pleased at his upturn in performance, stating that his car was "a lot better than we've been all year long", but that it had "got so loose there at the end".