Kyle Larson wins Cup Series at Homestead, finishes one race shy of triple-header sweep
HOMESTEAD, Fla. (AP) — Kyle Larson passed Alex Bowman with six laps remaining in NASCAR’s Cup Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday, giving the Hendrick Motorsports driver the 30th win of his career at one of his best tracks.
Larson, driving the No. 5 Chevrolet, sped by as Bowman scraped the wall on Turn 4 with the lead. Larson extended his edge to more than a second over his Hendrick Motorsports teammate, then held on to beat Bowman by 1.205 seconds for his second career Cup Series win at Homestead, and his second victory of the weekend.
Larson fell one race short of sweeping the triple-header weekend. He won the Craftsman Truck race on Friday and finished fourth in the Xfinity Series on Saturday despite leading 132 of 201 laps. He was hoping to join Kyle Busch as the only drivers to sweep a triple-header weekend — Busch did it at Bristol Motor Speedway in 2010 and 2017. Larson will take another shot at a sweep in Bristol next month.
He said he was motivated by Saturday’s result, when a late caution essentially cost him a race he had dominated. It was an all-to-familiar feeling of disappointment at Homestead despite Larson historically driving very well there.
“Proud of myself. Proud of the team. Just a lot of gritty hard work there today,” Larson said. “Super pumped. One of the coolest wins I think in my Cup career just because of all the heartbreak I’ve had here, the heartbreak yesterday. To just keep my head down and keep digging feels really good.”
He was far from dominant on Sunday. Larson led just 19 of 267 laps, had to climb from 14th-place starting position and overcame pit road mishaps and bad restarts to pull off the win — his first victory of the season and first in the Cup Series at Homestead since 2022.
“Given past history, I just wanted to take the green flag and kick everybody’s ass today,” Larson said. “I wanted to get to the lead early and just dominate like I was yesterday. Then the green flag flew, and it was like the opposite. I was going backwards, and getting (mad) in the helmet.
“After 10 laps or so, I forgot about the wanting to kick everybody’s ass all race long. It was like, ‘All right, let’s try to and work hard at this and get a win.’”
Bowman, who was Saturday’s pole winner, finished second in the No. 48 Chevrolet. Bubba Wallace was third for 23XI Racing after leading 56 laps — the most laps he’s led in a race since September 2023. Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Chase Briscoe and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top five.
Ryan Blaney was running third when his engine blew up on Lap 207, causing a thick cloud of smoke to cover the track and a lengthy cleanup.
It had been a strong race for Blaney before then. He led 124 laps and won Stage 1 after starting sixth. It was the second time in three races that Blaney did not finish a race because of an engine failure with his No. 12 Team Penske Ford.
“It just stinks,” Blaney said. “Led a lot of laps. Lost a little bit of track position there with some stuff on pit road but got back to third. And it was a great race between me, Bubba and Larson. … It was going to be a heck of a battle the last 60 laps or so, but just didn’t really work out for us. We’ll keep our head up.
“It’s one of those things where it’s not really going our way right now, but the good news is we’re bringing fast cars.”
Pit road mishaps
While exiting pit road on Lap 84, Josh Berry’s No. 21 Ford hit the side of Larson’s car, then hit Joey Logano’s No. 22 Ford. Both Logano and Berry spun then went the wrong direction into their pit stalls to check the damage. Larson’s car was slightly damaged from the contact.
Another incident happened on Lap 172. Chase Elliott received a penalty for not being line up single-file coming into pit road, even though Elliott could be heard on his in-car feed saying the he had veered left to avoid hitting someone, but gave the spot back. Elliott, driving a No. 9 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, finished 18th.
Homestead’s future
Some drivers would like to see Homestead return to the postseason after the 1.5-mile track went from hosting NASCAR’s championship races from 2002-2019 to being out of the playoff rotation.
While Phoenix Raceway has hosted the final since 2020, Homestead was in the playoff rotation the past three seasons before being moved to the regular season this year.
“I certainly would like to see it play a bigger factor in our championship, whether it’s in the playoffs or just part of the championship race or round,” Hamlin said.
Up next
The Cup series races next at Martinsville Speedway, where Blaney won in November to punch his ticket into last season’s playoff final four. Wiliam Byron won Martinsville last spring.
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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
By ALANIS THAMES
AP Sports Writer
