TALLADEGA, Ala. - Kyle Larson fell a little short of his first NASCAR Cup Series win at a drafting track at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday. But a heaping pile of points in leading another solid showing by Hendrick Motorsports, as well as a little history, were some notable consolation prizes.
Larson scored the most points (52) including winning stage one en route to finishing third. And for the third time already this year, all four of the organization's cars finished in the top 10. William Byron finished just behind (and alongside) Larson in fourth with Chase Elliott coming home seventh and Alex Bowman ninth.
The stage win gave Larson the 67th of his career, moving him out of a tie with Martin Truex Jr. for the most in Cup Series history. His third-place showing matched his best run in a race at a drafting track.
"A great day. A stage win, (third) in the second stage and (third) in the final," Larson said. "Great points day and best career finish at a superspeedway so happy about the performance today from the HendrickCars.com Chevy. Now we'll get to go to some strong race tracks for us and see if we can get some wins."
The Hendrick Motorsports contingent flashed its speed at the end of stage one. After hovering around the middle of the pack throughout much of the opening 60 laps, a couple of late cautions regrouped the field. A final restart with three laps to go provided the perfect opportunity as Larson, Byron and Elliott grouped up and surged to the end, finishing first, second and fourth respectively to score early points.
Outside of Larson, the other three Hendrick Motorsports entries each had significant adversity to overcome.
It started with Bowman, who was contacted during a stage-one crash with left-side damage being dealt to the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet. Byron, meanwhile, fought a steering issue throughout stage one and two before the No. 24 Valvoline team went under the hood and corrected the problem in time for the stretch run. Elliott had to make an additional pit stop late in stage two due to a penalty.
And yet, all were able to make their way back to the front throughout a stage three that didn't feature a caution flag. Larson and Byron were side-by-side in the second row over the final few laps but couldn't find an opening as the final laps ticked away.
"The guys did a great job getting it to where I could drive it in the third stage," Byron said. "Just really proud of our team. To be able to overcome that is just a testament to what our team is and the things we're able to do.
"I felt like I was in a really good spot to win there with 10 to go or eight to go, I've just got to look back at that and figure out where that went wrong. But still happy to get a top five and hopefully we can go get a win at Texas (Motor Speedway)."
The NASCAR Cup Series will head to Texas next Sunday with green flag set for 3:30 p.m. Elliott is the defending winner of the event.
Who won the NASCAR race today?
- Austin Cindric, No. 2
- Ryan Preece, No. 60
- Kyle Larson, No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet
- William Byron, No. 24 Valvoline Chevrolet
- Joey Logano, No. 22
- Noah Gragson, No. 4
- Chase Elliott, No. 9 Prime Video Chevrolet
- Carson Hocevar, No. 77
- Alex Bowman, No. 48 Ally Chevrolet
- Bubba Wallace, No. 23
- Daniel Suarez, No. 99
- Austin Dillon, No. 3
- Michael McDowell, No. 71
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr., No. 47
- Cole Custer, No. 41
- Tyler Reddick, No. 45
- Chase Briscoe, No. 19
- Todd Gilliland, No. 34
- Ty Gibbs, No. 54
- Erik Jones, No. 43
- Zane Smith, No. 38
- Ross Chastain, No. 1
- Denny Hamlin, No. 11
- Riley Herbst, No. 35
- Ty Dillon, No. 10
- AJ Allmendinger, No. 16
- Justin Haley, No. 7
- Josh Berry, No. 21
- Kyle Busch, No. 8
- Anthony Alfredo, No. 62
- Shane van Gisbergen, No. 88
- John Hunter Nemechek, No. 42
- Cody Ware, No. 51
- JJ Yeley, No. 44
- BJ McLeod, No. 78
- Chris Buescher, No. 17
- Christopher Bell, No. 20
- Brad Keselowski, No. 6
- Ryan Blaney, No. 12