KANSAS CITY, Kan. – In the closest finish in NASCAR history (0.001 seconds), Kyle Larson barely edged out Chris Buescher for the NASCAR Cup Series win at Kansas Speedway.
SHOP: Kyle Larson gear | PHOTOS: Scenes from victory lane
In an overtime finish, Larson lined up third after crew chief Cliff Daniels called for two right-side tires. He chose the inside lane behind race leader Denny Hamlin and immediately dove to the inside to take second. From there, Larson battled Buescher for the lead. The 2021 Cup Series champion went to the outside of Buescher’s No. 17 coming to turn four and the two came off the turn in a drag race that saw them hit twice coming to the line. Larson just got to the line.
"It started off (turn) two and I got a really good run and was able to get into his draft," Larson said of his overtime battle for the win with Buescher. "He was trying to break it and you could tell he was probably going to try and take my line away. I just drove in as hard as I felt like I could. My car cut really well and I was able to get to his right side. I don’t know if the camera caught it, but I was sideways and then got it kind of back under control. I had the run back to his right side off of (turn) four and was just too afraid to get too far out in front because a lot of times when you get someone close inside, you get tight and into the wall.
"I got off of (turn) four good and I thought, 'man, I have got to kill his run quick,' so I just hung a left, doored him and tried to stall his momentum. He had it slowly coming back to me at the line. Thankful that it was enough and those guys behind us didn’t get a huge run and get to our outside. Just incredible and I need to see the replay. I don’t know what it all looked like, but it was pretty damn cool from my seat."
PHOTOS: See every win for Kyle Larson at Hendrick Motorsports
The win is Larson’s second of the season and he joins Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron as one of three multi-time winners in 2024. It is also Larson's 25th Cup Series victory and his 19th driving for team owner Rick Hendrick, which ties him for third on the team’s all-time wins list with teammate Chase Elliott. Larson’s victory was also the 1,250th top-five result for the organization, which makes it the first Cup team to hit that mark.
Larson started the event from fourth in the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 after the race was delayed approximately three hours by rain. By lap 10, he was in the top 10. He went back and forth with Ross Chastain for the lead in the middle of the stage and got the position back on lap 51. Larson led the next 12 laps before Hamlin took the lead. From there, the Elk Grove, California, native finished the stage in third after Chastain got by him with 11 to go in the stage. In stage two, Larson nearly all of the first half of the segment after making a three-wide move on Chastain and Christopher Bell to get back to the point position. Trouble on the left-front lug nut during the green-flag stop saw Larson cycle out to fourth but he went on to climb to second at the end of stage two.
In the final stage, Larson restarted from the lead after winning the race off of pit road. A rash of cautions early in the final stage led to a strategy shakeup at the time of the fourth caution of the segment on lap 199. A handful of cars pitted under the prior caution, so they cycled to the front. Others took two tires, and Larson was in the camp which took four. He restarted from 13th on lap 206 and immediately went on offense. The 31-year-old driver entered the top 10 on the next lap and was in the top five just five laps later. He took over third on lap 231, but late in the run, Larson felt that his right-front tire was starting to cord and the driver of the No. 5 had fallen to sixth. However, a caution with six laps to go set up the dramatic finish and put Larson in position to grab his second win of the year and series-best sixth top-five finish of 2024.
RELATED: See the No. 5 HendrickCars.com throwback for Darlington weekend
"It was a lot of fun," Larson said of the race at Kansas. "It was stressful for sure racing that hard in stage one, but I was having so much fun with Ross (Chastain). It was super aggressive but clean. We never put each other in compromising positions and were able to swap positions there a couple of times. At the end of the second stage, it was getting kind of dicey and the whole third stage was pretty crazy with all the cautions and strategy. (Chris) Buescher was really fast and pressuring Denny (Hamlin) the whole time and we were fading.
"That caution played out good for us. The restarts are wild as we talked about earlier, so just an awesome race. Wish we had more mile-and-a-half’s because that was so much fun."
Chase Elliott started the Kansas race from the ninth position in the No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. He battled a tight race car in the first run of the stage, but liked the adjustments that crew chief Alan Gustafson had made under the first pit stop. Elliott finished the stage in 10th to earn a stage point. In the second segment, the 2020 Cup Series champion restarted ninth but fell to 16th after a chaotic restart. He kept his composure and rallied back into the top 10. A tight battle with Noah Gragson in the closing lap saw him finish just outside the top 10 in 11th.
Over the first half of the final stage, Elliott maintained a top-10 position. When the rash of cautions split up the strategy, the No. 9 was among those to pit for four tires and restarted 20th on lap 206. Elliott used the fresh Goodyears to his advantage, driving up into the top 10 and being one of the fastest cars on the track in this run. With 15 laps to go in regulation, the Dawsonville, Georgia, native reported a vibration and was scored in eighth when the late-race caution occurred. He pitted for two right-side tires and restarted fourth in overtime. Elliott gained one spot in the two-lap sprint to finish third for his fifth top-five result of the season.
RELATED: Register for 'Hendrick Homecoming' autograph session raffles
Alex Bowman took the green flag from the 18th position on the starting grid in the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. He quickly moved into the top 12 and reported that the car was snug overall in the first run and tight off of turn four. Following his green-flag pit stop, Bowman noted that he needed more front turn didn'tdn’t have much rear stability to give up. He lightly scrubbed the wall on lap 57 and lost a few spots in the running order before finishing the stage in 17th. Under caution, Bowman told crew chief Blake Harris that once the track rubbered up, he slid the nose too much in the corners. In stage two, the 31-year-old driver restarted from 15th and entered the top 10 on lap 90 with a car that he reported was freer on this run. The ensuing pit cycle saw Bowman go from ninth to seventh, where he finished the stage. He told Harris under yellow that the car was tight but had better rear security.
The final stage saw Bowman restart from 11th and fire off well to re-enter the top 10. The slew of yellows in the first half of the stage mixed up strategies at the lap 199 caution, where Bowman pitted from seventh. He restarted 19th on lap 206 with four fresh tires, but an extremely tight condition – rated "17 out of 10" by Bowman saw him fall back to 21st. At the time of the final caution, he was scored 15th. Harris' call for two tires allowed the No. 48 to gain eight spots on pit road and restart seventh. That is where Bowman finished for his third straight top 10 and his seventh of the season.
"We had a really fast No. 48 Ally Camaro. We just needed some track position," Bowman said. "The start of the last long run, we broke the nose on the restart. It’s all separated. We got really slow down the straightaway and really tight after that, so a seventh-place finish is probably like a win."
RELATED: Key numbers to know for Hendrick Motorsports in the Cup Series
After contact with the wall during his qualifying lap, William Byron lined up 36th in the No. 24 RAPTOR Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. Despite reporting being a little too tight early, he was a fast mover in the opening run of the first stage – moving up to 17th before the first green-flag pit stop on lap 33. Following pit stops, he continued to march forward and finished 13th in the stage. Under caution, Byron told the team that the track had transitioned to loose on that run. A bottleneck leaving pit road saw the 26-year-old driver restart 17th, but he got into the top 15 off the restart. Throughout the stage, the three-time winner in 2024 continued to battle a tight car and also reported a slight vibration in the closing laps of the segment before finishing in 14th.
Byron restarted the final stage in 13th and immediately jumped into the top 10 – a position he would maintain over the stops and starts of the stage due to several yellows in the first half of the segment. He reported being "too tight now" on the bottom after all the tire cycles. Coming down pit road after the lap 199 caution, the Charlotte, North Carolina, native got a four-tire call from crew chief Rudy Fugle but got boxed in trying to leave pit road. Byron restarted 23rd and had gotten inside the top 20 before the race's last caution. He asked for an adjustment to give him more turn and he restarted from 16th after taking two right-side tires. Byron finished the day in 23rd
Larson's win is the ninth for the team at Kansas, which is the most among all Cup Series organizations. Team vice chairman Jeff Gordon won the first race at the track in 2001 and earned three wins in total at the 1.5-mile oval. Jimmie Johnson also posted three wins at the Kansas City, Kansas, venue. Larson now has two Kansas wins and Elliott has one. The team's 2,180 laps out front at the facility are also the best among all teams in the series.
RELATED: See every Hendrick Motorsports win at Kansas Speedway
In the Next Gen era, Hendrick Motorsports' eight wins on 1.5-mile tracks lead all Cup Series teams, with the next closest teams having three triumphs. Since 2022, Larson has had a series-best four wins on this track length, while Byron has two and Bowman and Elliott have each had one. This season, Rick Hendrick's team has won all three races on 1.5-mile tracks, with Larson winning at Kansas and Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Elliott's triumph at Texas Motor Speedway.
Larson's 64 laps led on the day add to his series-best total of 634. He holds the points lead by 29 markers. Elliott is third, while Byron is seventh and Bowman is ninth. The Concord, North Carolina-based team leads the Cup Series with six victories.
Next up for the quartet is the throwback weekend at Darlington Raceway. The organization swept both races at the South Carolina track in 2023, with Byron winning in May for the No. 24's 100th Cup win and Larson scoring the playoff victory in September for Hendrick Motorsports engine department's 500th national series win. Tune in to catch the action on Sunday, May 12, at 3 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Channel 90).
