SONOMA – Kyle Larson celebrated NASCAR approving his playoff entry with his third Cup win of the season – a win Sunday at his home track.
The victory for Larson, who came 80 miles from Sonoma Raceway in Elk Grove, was his second on the rolling course in picturesque wine country. It is the fifth road course victory for NASCAR’s 2021 Cup champion and moved him to the top of the current standings.
He wasn’t quite sure how he reached victory lane after emerging from the pits eighth following his final service stop of the race with less than 30 laps to go. He had to move to the front and only regained the lead with eight laps to go.
“I didn’t know what we were doing strategy-wise. I was just blasting away a few laps in,” Larson said. “I don’t know, we study all the strategy, but it’s like doing homework: I don’t really know what I’m looking at.
“So I thought, ‘Well man, these guys might need to pit again?’ Then we said we had to go racing and pass these guys, I got a little nervous.”
Godofredo A. Vásquez / AP
Despite his dominance early in the season, it wasn’t until Tuesday of this week that NASCAR granted Larson the waiver he needed to compete in this year’s playoffs after missing the Coca-Cola 600 last month. Larson became the fifth driver to attempt the Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR’s longest race of the season on the same day, but rain in both Indiana and North Carolina ruined the attempt.
The Indy 500 was delayed four hours due to rain, forcing Larson to miss the start of the Coca-Cola 600. By the time he arrived in North Carolina, the race had stopped there due to rain, never restarted and Larson never turned a lap. . That’s why it took NASCAR a week of internal debate to decide whether one of its biggest stars would get the pass required to remain eligible to play in the playoffs.
His win at Sonoma only showed how foolish NASCAR would have looked had it decided against the Hendrick Motorsports driver.
Jeff Gordon, the vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports, said Larson and the No. 5 team were never upset while waiting for an exemption.
“I didn’t see it impacting the majority of the team,” said Gordon, who added that Larson and crew chief Cliff Daniels authorized Hendrick executives to handle communications with NASCAR. “As far as it trickling down to the team, I didn’t see what they were really concerned about. They appear to be business as usual. I think the best medicine in all these situations is to return to the track.
“Especially when they got here, Kyle’s home track, a track they love to race at, I think that negated a lot of that.”
Larson led 19 of the 110 laps, passing defending race winner Martin Truex Jr. with eight laps remaining to hold on for the win in his No. 5 Chevrolet. It is his 20th win since joining Hendrick in 2021, which ranks third in the organization behind Gordon and Jimmie Johnson.
Truex would finish second in a Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing, but ran out of gas before reaching the finish line. He was scored 27th when a pair of tow trucks followed him to the finish.
That gave Michael McDowell second place in a Ford for Front Row Motorsports. Chris Buescher was third in a Ford for RFK Racing and Hendrick’s Chase Elliott was fourth. He was followed by Trackhouse’s Ross Chastain, who made contact with Kyle Busch on the final lap, dropping Busch from fifth to 17th.
HAMLIN ASKED OUT
Denny Hamlin, the Cup Series points leader at the start of the race, met an abrupt end just two laps into the event when his Toyota engine failed, leaving him in last place for the second year in a row at Sonoma . .
Hamlin said he had no warning that the engine was about to explode. He started 25th and was 29th when his engine failed.
“No. Nothing. Just the acceleration is a little weird for the track,” Hamlin said. “It’s a lot of high-end RPM stuff, but the same as all the others and I’m just not sure. They’ll look at it and figure it out, but certainly not ideal.”
Hamlin, who finished 38th, finished outside the top 30 three years in a row at Sonoma.
Things weren’t much better for Ty Gibbs, his teammate at Joe Gibbs Racing, who hit the wall sixteen laps into the race and finished just one spot better than Hamlin in 37th.
“I just made a mistake and took us out of this day,” Gibbs said.
