Kyle Larson wins NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway
Kyle Larson showed the strength of his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet over the closing miles and won Sunday’s 400-lap NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway.
The win was the first of the season for the former Cup champion, and it came in a race that saw a variety of tire strategies.
Larson rallied from an incident on pit road, where he bumped Daniel Suarez and sustained minor damage to his Chevrolet.
Second was Josh Berry, Larson’s Hendrick teammate and the fill-in driver for injured Chase Elliott, still recovering from a leg injury suffered in a snowboarding accident. Following in the top five were Ross Chastain, Christopher Bell and Kevin Harvick.
The race to the finish was set up by a caution flag with 30 laps to go, bunching the field with teams rolling along on different tire strategies. At the following green flag, Larson, Berry, Martin Truex Jr. and William Byron were in front. Truex had held the lead but lost a shot at the win because of the caution. When he and the other leaders pitted, Truex had only a set of used tires to use for the final laps, putting him at a significant disadvantage.
The green was barely in the air when Bell popped Byron in the front pack, sending him into a spin and causing another caution.
Truex took the lead after a round of green-flag pit stops around lap 290. Denny Hamlin had the lead when the sequence began, but a slow stop by his team allowed Truex, who had been second, to inherit the lead.
Hamlin took the lead from Bell with two laps to go in the second stage and led Bell, Byron, Truex and Chastain to the stage finish. Through two stages, Byron had led 108 laps and Larson 67.
Berry produced the day’s fourth caution when he spun out near the start-finish line on lap 96. Berry lost a lap.
Byron dominated the first stage, leading 45 of the 70 laps.
The first on-track caution occurred on lap 46 when Hamlin bumped J.J. Yeley into a slide.
Stage 1 winner: William Byron
Stage 2 winner: Denny Hamlin
Who had a good race: Martin Truex Jr. enjoyed his best run of the season but fell victim to a late-race caution flag. … William Byron, the season’s only multiple winner with two, won the first stage and was strong at or near the front virtually the entire afternoon. … Denny Hamlin seemed on the way to another win at his favorite track but lost the lead because of a slow pit stop late in the race.
Who had a bad race: Daytona 500 winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was forced to the pits early with a fluid leak and brake issues. He fell to the rear of the field after repairs. … Noah Gragson slammed the wall in Turn 2 with 95 laps to go and parked for the afternoon.
Next: The Cup Series moves on to Bristol Motor Speedway April 9 (7 p.m. ET) for its annual dirt race.
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Kyle Larson wins NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway originally appeared on NBCSports.com
