Larson Dominates For First Homestead Triumph

Photo Credit to Hendrick Motorsports via Twitter

NASCAR

Kyle Larson Picks Up Third Win of Season in Homestead Domination

HOMESTEAD, Fla. – For the fifth time in the 2022 Playoffs, a non-contender has gone to victory lane. At Homestead-Miami Speedway the day belonged to Kyle Larson. The Valvoline No. 5 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports led a whopping 199 of 267 laps, taking all three Stages and leaving the field in the dust. While no longer a part of the driver’s championship, Larson’s team is still in the Owner’s Title hunt. This win puts the 5 car through to Phoenix to battle it out for the team championship.

Coming into Homestead as the odds-on favorite despite no longer being in the title fight, Larson quickly found the lead and hardly ever looked back. Lap 27 saw the 5 take command for the first time, as Larson won Stage 1 by an astounding nine seconds. Stage 2 would have seen a similar winning margin, but this segment ended prematurely under caution. Chase Briscoe spun out in turn two in the closing laps. This last-place finish puts the 14 in a must-win scenario for Martinsville next week.

After taking both Stages convincingly, Larson appeared on his way to his most dominant win since last year. That would change though with just over 50 to go, when Ryan Blaney spun after exiting pit road. This triggered a caution, as Larson had yet to make his final pit stop.

On the ensuing restart, Larson lined up third but initially fell back. After a few laps of racing though, Larson’s car came alive up against the wall, as he began to quickly chase down Martin Truex Jr. Another caution would drastically shake up the finish of this race, erasing any advantage Truex had.

While on pit road, Truex initially missed his cue to turn into his pit stall. With Larson following closely behind the 19, Truex’s evasive reaction caused him to spin off of the 5’s bumper. Thankfully all of his pit crew scattered out of the way, with none getting hit by the Toyota. After coming in as the leader though, Truex would be forced to restart 19th.

On the other end of pit road, Larson had a flawless stop and regained the lead. The restart saw the 5 easily clear for the lead, as he held serve from this point onward. An intense battle for second between Ross Chastain and AJ Allmendinger allowed Larson to scoot away, eventually taking his first checkered flag at one of his favorite racetracks.

“Yeah this was definitely the best run we’ve had all year long,” Larson said. “I feel like we’ve been capable of it, many weekends we just haven’t quite put it all together. Cliff (Daniels, crew chief) gave a great speech this morning, and got us all focused and ready to go. Did my best to keep it out of the wall, I got in it a few times, but I could still make speed doing that. Amazing racecar, I knew that the last run was going to be short enough where I was going to be in some trouble there, but thankfully AJ and Ross were racing hard behind me. Huge thanks to Valvoline, Hendrickcars.com, everybody at Hendrick Motorsports too.”

“Happy for our team, we get to go race for an Owner’s Title in Phoenix in a few weeks. We’re still technically not out of it, it means more to me to win it as a team. We’re going to go to Phoenix and try to get another championship.”

Behind Larson, top finishers were Ross Chastain, AJ Allmendinger, Austin Dillon, Brad Keselowski, Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, and Daniel Suarez.

With a non-Playoff driver winning Homestead, three Championship 4 spots are open for seven drivers in Martinsville. The Xfinity 500 is what stands between three drivers and a trip to Phoenix for the 2022 championship. The green flag will fly in Virginia Sunday at 2:00 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90. The standings are tight around the cut line, with William Byron holding the final spot by just five points over Denny Hamlin. Can one of them take home the Grandfather Clock at Martinsville?

Written by Peter Stratta

Be sure to follow us on Twitter

Be sure to follow the writer on Twitter

Photo Credit to Hendrick Motorsports via Twitter