It wasn’t necessarily the dominant performance that many expected from Kyle Larson at Homestead-Miami Speedway, but the Hendrick Motorsports driver was still able to park his No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet in Victory Lane after Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 400.
The Elk Grove, California-native only led 19 laps around the mile-and-a-half racetrack on Sunday but managed to keep himself near the front of the field and ultimately took advantage of his competitor’s shortcomings in the final laps, making the final pass for the lead with seven laps remaining.
With just 15 laps to go, Larson was sitting in fourth place and prepared to take advantage of his biggest strength all afternoon: his long-run pace. The 33-year-old driver then stalked and made a pass on Chase Briscoe for third, then Bubba Wallace for the runner-up position, before going on the hunt against his teammate Alex Bowman, who won the pole for Sunday’s 400-mile contest.
Inside the race’s final 10 laps, Bowman was beginning to fade, and was quickly falling into the clutches of Larson, when the driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet made a costly mistake, getting too high on the racetrack and making contact with the outside wall in Turn 4.
RACE RESULTS: Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead
Larson blasted to the inside of Bowman and left the Ally-sponsored driver in his dust, extending his lead to 1.205 seconds by the time the checkered flag was displayed.
The victory marks the 30th win in Larson’s NASCAR Cup Series career, 24 of which have come for Hendrick Motorsports – putting him third all-time on the organization’s win list behind Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson. It’s also the second win of the season for Hendrick Motorsports, assuring at least half of the team’s fleet will be in the post-season this Fall.
“It was far from perfect. I gave up a spot and a half, almost two spots there by getting in the wall too many times,” Larson said about his performance. “I knew I wasn’t going to get the best restart there. I knew I wasn’t good on the short runs and just thought if I could hold of [Hamlin] and [Reddick] behind me, I could get ringing the top, and the No. 19 too. Then I got in the wall and let him by.”
It’s the second victory of the weekend for Kyle Larson, after he captured the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series win on Friday in the No. 07 for Spire Motorsports. Larson also ran Saturday’s Xfinity Series event but lost the race on a late-race restart.
“Just had to keep plugging away at what I know and what’s good for me,” Larson said. “So just proud of myself, proud of the team. Just a lot of gritty, hard work there today between damage on pit road, you know, qualifying bad, bad restarts, all that stuff. Just super pumped. One of the coolest wins I think in my Cup carer just because of the heartbreak I’ve had here, the heartbreak yesterday, and to just keep my head down and keep digging feels really good.”
Alex Bowman showed considerable speed all afternoon and was able to put himself in a position to compete for the victory on Sunday, but came up just one spot short of Kyle Larson. It’s by far the best finish of the Tucson, Arizona native’s career at the 1.5-mile racetrack, in which his previous best was seventh.
“I guess I choked that one away,” Bowman said. “Just burned my stuff up. Saw [Larson] coming, so moved around a little bit. Not when he passed me, but the time before that I hit it hard with the right front and ended up just bending something enough that I lost a lot of right-front feel and then I pulled it off the wall too far right there and ended up hitting the fence pretty bad.”
“I hate that for this Ally No. 48 group. They deserve better than that.”
Bubba Wallace was also in contention to capture the victory in Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 400, leading the event inside the final 40 laps of the race. However, after being passed for the lead by Alex Bowman with 32 laps to go, and eventually second by Larson, the driver of the No. 23 had to settle for third.
Chase Briscoe finally put a solid run together and brought his No. 19 Toyota Camry XSE home in fourth place, while his teammate at Joe Gibbs Racing, Denny Hamlin, rounded out the top five. Chris Buescher finished in sixth, with AJ Allmendinger recording his second straight top-10 in seventh place. Tyler Reddick, Ryan Preece, and Justin Haley completed the top-10 in the race’s final rundown.
William Byron had a solid afternoon going, as well, running inside the top five for the majority of the event, before getting a pit road speeding penalty on the final round of caution flag pit stops, sending him to the rear of the field. Byron only would be able to drive to the 12th position.
The most devastating finish to an afternoon on Sunday belonged to Ryan Blaney, who after being a dominant force in the first two-thirds of the event, grenade an engine late in the race, forcing him to retire from the event and finish a dismal 36th – another poor finish for the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion.
Leaving Homestead, William Byron continued to hold the points lead in the NASCAR Cup Series after a number of solid results. The No. 24 team holds a 36-point advantage over new second-place driver Kyle Larson, with Alex Bowman rounding out a Hendrick Motorsports sweep of the top three.
The NASCAR Cup Series heads to Martinsville Speedway for next weekend’s Cook Out 400, which will take place on Sunday, March 30 at 3:00 PM ET on FS1, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
