In a thrilling finish to the Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Kyle Larson overtook his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman with just six laps remaining to secure his 30th NASCAR Cup Series victory and his second win of the weekend.
Larson, driving the No. 5 Chevrolet, capitalized on a mistake by Bowman, who scraped the wall on Turn 4 while leading the race. The contact allowed Larson to speed by and extend his lead to more than a second, ultimately crossing the finish line 1.205 seconds ahead of Bowman.
“I knew me coming towards those guys, they were going to start moving around and making mistakes, and I felt like if I could just keep pressure on Alex, he may make a mistake, and he caught the wall there, and I got around him easier than I expected to,” Larson said. “Still had to work hard, though. My balance in clean air was really loose, just like those guys were. Hats off to the whole team.”
The 32-year-old Californian’s victory marked his first Cup Series win at Homestead since 2022 and his second trophy of the weekend. Larson had been hoping to join Kyle Busch as the only drivers to sweep a triple-header weekend, a feat Busch accomplished at Bristol Motor Speedway in 2010 and 2017. Despite winning Friday’s Craftsman Truck race and finishing fourth in Saturday’s Xfinity Series race after leading 132 of 201 laps, Larson fell just short of the sweep.
“Had to keep plugging away, proud of myself, proud of the team, just a lot of gritty hard work there today between damage on pit road, qualifying bad, bad restarts all that stuff,” Larson said. “Just super pumped. One of the coolest wins I think of my Cup career just because of all the heartbreak here, the heartbreak yesterday. Just kept my head down and kept digging.”
Bowman, who started from the pole position, expressed disappointment with his second-place finish after leading 43 laps. “Guess I choked that one away, for sure,” he said. “Just kind of burned myself up. Saw the 5 [Larson] coming, so I moved around a little bit. Man, I hate that for this Ally 48 group. They deserve better than that. Just a couple mistakes there. Felt like we were OK all day there.”
Bubba Wallace claimed third place for 23XI Racing, leading a season-high 56 laps in the No. 23 Toyota. Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Chase Briscoe and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top five, with Hamlin winning Stage 2.
The day’s most dominant driver, Ryan Blaney, suffered a devastating blow when his engine failed on Lap 207 while running third. Blaney had led a race-high 124 laps and won Stage 1 in 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.”
The race also featured several pit road mishaps, including an incident on Lap 84 when Josh Berry’s No. 21 Ford hit the side of Larson’s car and then collided with Joey Logano’s No. 22 Ford, causing both Logano and Berry to spin.
With the victory, Larson moved into second place in the NASCAR Cup Series championship standings, 36 points behind teammate and Daytona 500 winner William Byron. Bowman now sits third, 39 points back.
The series moves on to Martinsville Speedway next weekend for the Cook Out 400, with Christopher Bell, who finished 29th at Homestead after a Lap 70 spin, leading the series with three victories this season.
