BRISTOL, Tenn. – Kyle Larson punched his Round-of-12 ticket with a haymaker to the rest of the NASCAR Cup Series playoff field.
It was a Bristol blistering from the 32-year-old native of Elk Grove, California, as Larson led a whopping 462 out of 500 laps and swept all three stages en route to his fifth win of the season at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday night.
To put Saturday’s performance into perspective, Larson set a new Hendrick Motorsports record for the most laps led in a single race and became the first driver to lead 400 laps at Bristol since Kyle Busch in 2008.
"Man, that was just great execution all weekend by the team," Larson said. "Practiced good, youv'e got to qualify good, we did that and yeah, just had a great car. Thanks to the whole (number) five team, you're the best in the business and we dominate a lot of races, but we might not close them all out, so it was really good to close one out in this HendrickCars.com Chevy."
The race finished off the Round of 16 with all four Hendrick Motorsports drivers – Larson, Chase Elliott, Alex Bowman and William Byron – advancing to the next round thanks to steady drives on Saturday.
Elliott used a good pit stop and an aggressive restart in the middle of the final stage to surge into second place in his No. 9 LLumar Chevy. He finished things off from there, coming home in the runner-up spot with three stage points to boot.
"I thought it was just a really solid night, overall," Elliott said. "Had really nice pace and really thought our car drove really well. I don't think I could've asked much more out of the car. I think kyle did a really nice job getting through traffic and that was the difference. I kind of got hung up and he was able to slice through there."
Bowman started the race from the pole and led the first 34 laps before yielding to Larson. He finished second in stage one and added 13 stage points to a fantastic Round of 16 effort, finishing ninth on Saturday.
"Proud of this No. 48 Ally Camaro team," Bowman said. "We did what we needed the whole first round of the playoffs but also we want to be better and continue that through the next round. Missed it a little bit today when (the track) rubbered dup but other than that a really solid points day for us and we'll keep at it."
Finally, Byron scored six stage points before settling for 17th, advancing comfortably.
"We'll forget about this one for sure and go onto Kansas and I know we'll be good there," Byron said. "Really, all tonight was about was advancing and we did that, so proud of that for sure."
All the speed backed up a solid qualifying effort in which all four Hendrick Motorsports drivers earned top-10 starting spots on Friday. In addition to Bowman's pole-winning effort, Larson earned the second starting spot, Byron fired off third and Elliott 10th.
With the victory, Larson added seven more valuable playoff points to his cushion and will enter the Round of 12 as the points leader, 39 points above the cutline. Byron is now in the fourth spot, 14 markers to the good, Elliott is currently seventh with a six-point margin and Bowman will start the next round tied for 11th, seven points below the elimination line.
The Round of 12 will begin with a race at Kansas Speedway next Sunday. Coverage of the race will begin at 3 p.m. and will air on USA Network.
NASCAR Round of 12 playoff standings
| Driver | Points | To the cutline |
| 1. Kyle Larson | 3,047 | +39 |
| 2. Christopher Bell | 3,032 | +24 |
| 3. Tyler Reddick | 3,028 | +20 |
| 4. William Byron | 3,022 | +14 |
| 5. Ryan Blaney | 3,019 | +11 |
| 6. Denny Hamlin | 3,015 | +7 |
| 7. Chase Elliott | 3,014 | +6 |
| 8. Joey Logano | 3,012 | +4 |
| ---------------------- | -------- | --- |
| 9. Austin Cindric | 3,008 | -4 |
| 10. Daniel Suarez | 3,006 | -6 |
| t-11. Alex Bowman | 3,005 | -7 |
| t-11. Chase Briscoe | 3,005 | -7 |