Kyle Busch wins the 2015 Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway

Four months after a crash left him with devastating injuries and in his fifth start since returning, Kyle Busch won his first Sprint Cup Series race of the season Sunday at Sonoma Raceway.

With fresher tires, Busch passed leader Jimmie Johnson with five laps remaining, then outran older brother Kurt Busch and Clint Bowyer to secure the win. Kevin Harvick and Joey Logano completed the top-five finishers. Johnson slid to sixth.

“This is awesome. Just unbelievable,” Busch said in victory lane. “I can’t say enough about my medical team, everyone who got me back in shape and back on the race track.”

Busch broke his right leg and left foot in a wreck during the Feb. 21 Xfinity Series race at Daytona International Speedway. The crash left his season in doubt, but after missing 11 races -- coming back sooner than expected -- he made his return Memorial Day weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

In the four races preceding Sonoma, Busch’s best result was ninth. The win marked the 30th of his career and second on the Northern California road course.

The deciding sequence was set up by Casey Mears’ disabled car that necessitated the fifth caution of the afternoon. Johnson elected not to pit, while the majority of those behind him stopped for fresh tires.

When the race resumed with seven laps to go, Johnson had a buffer of four cars between himself, Bowyer and Kyle Busch, the top two drivers who pitted. Wasting little time, Busch moved to second and ran down Johnson. Bowyer closed on Busch, but could never attempt a pass before Kurt Busch passed him.

“Without that pit stop, we definitely wouldn’t have been in this position,” Busch said. “We would have been fighting off the guys off behind us like Jimmie and those guys were.”

NASCAR granted Busch a waiver making him eligible for a spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, provided he win a race and finish the regular season better than 30th in the standings.

Sunday’s win fulfilled the first requirement, but Busch trails 30th-ranked Cole Whitt by 136 points with 10 races left. To move above the cut line, Busch will likely need to record an average finish of 14th.

“I figured the win was going to be the hardest thing to get,” Busch said. “But now that that’s out of the way, we can now work towards being able to get ourselves top 30 and just get some good solid finishes.

“We don’t have to take that chance of going for a win and having an opportunity of crashing or something like that. We can just sit there and sit still and be able to finish third, fourth or fifth. You get those kinds of finishes and the points are going to add up and you’re going to be fine making the Chase.”

As he was leading, Kyle saw Kurt trying to work by Bowyer for second, hoping his brother could give the duo their first 1-2 finish. Kurt, who led a race-high 43 laps, eventually passed Bowyer but didn’t have enough time to catch Kyle.

“That’s a pretty special moment,” Kurt Busch said. “I’ve got over 500 starts. I know he’s over 300. Can you imagine, 800 starts between the two of us, we almost have 30 wins each, and that’s the first time we’ve ever finished one-two? I now I wish I would have gotten up there and moved him.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kasey Kahne, Ryan Newman and Sam Hornish Jr. finished seventh through 10th, respectively.

Jeff Gordon -- who grew up about 20 miles from the track in Vallejo, Calif. -- finished 16th in his last Sonoma start. The four-time Cup Series champion is retiring at the end of the season.