Kyle Larson went just five races between wins. He drove back to Victory Lane on Sunday at Watkins Glen International, holding the lead over Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott.
The win ties Larson with NASCAR’s Cup Series points leader Denny Hamlin for the first time this season and gives Larson the tie breaking advantage as a five-time race winner in 2021.
“It’s been a while since we’ve been here, so hopefully we put on a good show for you,” No. 5 driver Larson told the sellout crowd at The Glen in New York.
NASCAR returned to the track for the first time since 2019 after last year’s event was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Elliott was an early favorite to win as a two-time Watkins Glen race winner in the series, but he finished 2.4 seconds behind the leader after overcoming pre-race penalties and a flat-spotted tire that forced an unscheduled green flag pit stop.
No. 5 crew chief Cliff Daniels credited Elliott’s team for the recovery, but it was Larson’s team that was a staple of the top three throughout the 2.45-mile road course event. Larson also earned the most points through the first two stages, with a second place finish in Stage 1 followed by a fourth place finish in Stage 2. Joey Logano and Martin Truex Jr. won the first two stages, respectively, and Truex held the lead through a majority of the final stage.
A faster pit stop eventually gave Larson the advantage over Truex as the drivers made their late pit stops. Larson was up to the lead by Lap 65 of 90 total when the other leaders cycled through stops. Truex was in Larson’s mirror at that point and Elliott gained pace further back.
Logano, who struggled to communicate with his team due to radio issues for the entirety of the event, was hit by teammate Brad Keselowski early in the final stage to knock both from the top 20. The Penske drivers started in the front row. While Logano struggled with his radio, Keselowski struggled with his braking, and neither was able to recover after the contact to get back into the top 20 by the finish.
ELLIOTT, BELL OVERCOME PRE-RACE PENALTIES, MID-RACE DRAMA
Instead, it was Elliott who overcame position deficiencies. He started at the rear of the field due to multiple inspection failures and a significant pre-race penalty for a rear-window air deflector issue. Elliott’s No. 9 crew chief Alan Gustafson was suspended for the race as part of the penalty, so the driver was working with a substitute crew chief Tom Gray from Hendrick Motorsports.
The No. 9 team still found speed early and Elliott was up to eighth place in the first stage after driving from the back of the field along with Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell, whose No. 20 team received the same L1 penalty as Elliott’s team before the race. The penalties also docked both teams 10 driver and owner points and they were issued a $25,000 fine.
Bell, who won the road course race at Daytona earlier this year, still had a solid run until contact in the final stage with Larson as they battled for second place behind Truex. Larson apologized to Bell after the race, saying that he “needed to have the nose a few feet further ahead” and that the “angles just caught there in the middle” to turn Bell.
“I hate that,” Larson said. “I race with him a lot. He’s probably the one guy that I race with the most in all my racing, so hate to turn him like that.”
Bell still finished in seventh, while Elliott recovered from a flat-spotted tire that forced a green flag pit stop around Lap 30 to get back to the top 10 in the final 40 laps. With nine laps to go, Elliott was up to second place and around five seconds behind his teammate while chasing his eighth road course win. A victory would tie him with Tony Stewart in second on the series’ all-time road course wins list behind Jeff Gordon. But both the Elliott and Larson hit lapped traffic, and without a caution, Elliott couldn’t make up the gap in the closing laps.
He didn’t have enough speed to catch up to Larson for the win, saying that there were “too many mistakes.”
“Made it too late in the race,” Elliott said on NBSCN. “Super proud of our team. It was just an uphill battle all day.”
LARSON TIES SERIES LEADER
Larson’s win ties him with Hamlin for the series lead at 917 points. Hamlin had led the Cup point standings without a win since the second race of the season. Now, just three races remain before a regular season champion is crowned.
“I like this because it’s making me keep my form through the whole year,” Hamlin told reporters at the track. “It’s really pushing me to treat every race like a playoff race.”
He added that the points battle between the two drivers and friends could come down to the last race of the regular season at Daytona. Larson said the same.
“Anything can happen at Daytona,” he said. “But I know (Hamlin’s) gonna go there and he’s gonna get stage points and he’s gonna challenge for the win. And I know he looks at me as the same. If he can go into Daytona being even or ahead (in points), he’s gonna feel like he’s got the advantage, so I’d like to have a good couple of weeks before we get there and you know give us a little bit of wiggle room.”
Before that, however, there’s another road course race. The next one will be held for the first time on the road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in one week. Larson will look to defend his most recent win while Hamlin looks for his first win this year, and Elliott tries again to move up on the all-time road course wins list.
The next Cup Series race, the Verizon 200 at the Brickyard, is Sunday at 1 p.m. EST on NBC.
