Kyle Larson passed Alex Bowman with six laps to go in NASCAR’s Cup Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday, earning his 30th career win at one of his best tracks.
Larson, driving the No. 5 Chevrolet, made the move when Bowman scraped the wall on Turn 4 while leading. Larson increased his lead to over a second ahead of his Hendrick Motorsports teammate and held on to win by 1.205 seconds. This was Larson’s second Cup Series victory at Homestead and his second win of the weekend.
Larson missed out on sweeping the weekend by one race. He won the Craftsman Truck race on Friday and finished fourth in the Xfinity Series on Saturday, despite leading 132 out of 201 laps. He was hoping to become the second driver to sweep a triple-header weekend, following Kyle Busch, who did so at Bristol Motor Speedway in 2010 and 2017. Larson will have another chance to achieve this at Bristol next month.
Larson said the disappointment of Saturday’s race, where a late caution cost him a win despite dominating, motivated him. He has often felt disappointment at Homestead despite being successful there in the past.
“Proud of myself. Proud of the team. Just a lot of gritty hard work there today,” Larson said. “Super pumped. One of the coolest wins I think in my Cup career just because of all the heartbreak I’ve had here, the heartbreak yesterday. To just keep my head down and keep digging feels really good.”
Larson wasn’t dominant in the race. He led just 19 of 267 laps, started in 14th place, and had to overcome pit road issues and poor restarts to win — his first victory of the season and his first Cup Series win at Homestead since 2022.
“Given past history, I just wanted to take the green flag and kick everybody’s ass today,” Larson said. “I wanted to get to the lead early and just dominate like I was yesterday. Then the green flag flew, and it was like the opposite. I was going backwards, and getting (mad) in the helmet.
“After 10 laps or so, I forgot about the wanting to kick everybody’s ass all race long. It was like, ‘All right, let’s try to and work hard at this and get a win.’”
Bowman, the pole winner on Saturday, finished second in the No. 48 Chevrolet. Bubba Wallace finished third for 23XI Racing after leading 56 laps — the most laps he has led since September 2023. Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Chase Briscoe and Denny Hamlin finished in the top five.
Kyle Larson crosses the line after the winRyan Blaney was running third when his engine failed on Lap 207, causing a large cloud of smoke on the track and a long cleanup
Blaney had been having a strong race until that point. He led 124 laps and won Stage 1 after starting sixth. It was the second time in three races that Blaney did not finish because of an engine failure with 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.
“It’s one of those things where it’s not really going our way right now, but the good news is we’re bringing fast cars.”
Pit road issues were a problem for some drivers. On Lap 84, Josh Berry’s No. 21 Ford hit the side of Larson’s car, then hit Joey Logano’s No. 22 Ford. Both Logano and Berry spun and went in the wrong direction into their pit stalls to check for damage. Larson’s car was slightly damaged from the contact.
Another issue occurred on Lap 172. Chase Elliott received a penalty for not lining up single-file coming into pit road. He was heard on his in-car feed saying he had veered left to avoid hitting someone but gave the spot back. Elliott, driving the No. 9 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, finished 18th.
Some drivers would like to see Homestead return to the postseason after it stopped hosting NASCAR’s championship races from 2002-2019 and was removed from the playoff rotation.
Phoenix Raceway has hosted the final race since 2020, but Homestead was in the playoff rotation for the last three seasons before being moved to the regular season this year.
“I certainly would like to see it play a bigger factor in our championship, whether it’s in the playoffs or just part of the championship race or round,” Hamlin said.
