Larson & Byron Lead Strong ‘Dega Showing For HMS

Kyle Larson (5) battles William Byron at Talladega Superspeedway. (Max Corcoran/Race Face Digital photo)

TALLADEGA, Ala. – Hendrick Motorsports had a day at Talladega Superspeedway. It might not have yielded a win Sunday, but it was consistent by the numbers.

Although the Chevrolet stable was unable to speed away with the victory, all four Hendrick cars placed inside the top 10 at the 2.66-mile track for the first time since 2011 in one of the sport’s usual wild-card events.

Racing to the finish line, Austin Cindric had a rearview mirror full of Hendrick stars Kyle Larson and William Byron when he nipped Ryan Preece by .022 seconds for his third career NASCAR Cup Series win in the Jack Link’s 500.

But even after a week off from competition, the Larson-Byron tandem at HMS managed to retain their front-running status as two of the best drivers in the sport with a pair of podium finishes.

For a driver with as rough of a record as Larson has on drafting tracks, the former champion has begun to assert himself as a true contender at his only unconquered discipline on the circuit.

After taking the checkered flag third as the one pushing Cindric to victory, the No. 5 team was later awarded a runner-up finish when runner-up Preece was disqualified during post-race inspection.

As a result, Larson now has podium finishes in back-to-back drafting track races, in addition to top fives in two consecutive starts at Talladega.

The finish aside, the driver from Elk Grove, Calif., easily put together the best performance in the 188-lap event, earning a race-high 54 points. That included a win in stage one, which set a new all-time Cup Series record of 67 stage wins and counting for the 2021 series champion.

After speeding on pit road to end the first segment, Larson rallied for another nine stage points and put himself in position for a second straight victory after his pre-Easter score at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.

While that didn’t end up happening, Larson still secured a series-best sixth top-five finish this season, but was disappointed he didn’t have more of an opportunity to make a bid for the win down the stretch.

“There wasn’t really much I could do the final five laps,” Larson said. “I wanted to go to the outside lane when we got clear of (Byron), but I felt like the gap was too big to move up and the No. 60 (Preece) was able to fill it. I was still happy to be second row on the inside lane, obviously (would have been) happy to be front row, but I just didn’t know how it was going to play out from there.

“At the end, you’re just trying to give the right pushes to get clear … and then maybe (Cindric) starts blocking lanes and something would open up for me, but I was just kind of jammed up there,” Larson added. “I will take a third-place finish. We had a great day, points-wise, for this No. 5 team. Winning the first stage was a bit unexpected, and then finishing (runner-up) in the second stage from where we were on the final restart was also unexpected.

“Just a really good day, overall, for the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevy.”

Third-place finisher Byron had arguably the most eventful day of the Hendrick Motorsports quartet, but he and the No. 24 team kept their composure to rally for an impressive fifth straight finish of seventh or better at Talladega.

Earning nine stage points in the opening segment, the 27-year-old later radioed to the team that his steering wheel would “lock out” at random times. Unable to properly diagnose the issue during the lap-60 stage break, Byron rode around a majority of the second stage to a 20th-place finish.

After sitting on pit road with the hood up on his No. 24 at the end of stage two, the problem was solved and he mounted a championship-caliber comeback en route to his eventual third-place result.

In scoring a series-best seventh top 10 in the 10th race of the season, Byron maintained the regular season point lead and improved his series-leading average finish to 8.5.

"We had (teammate Alex Bowman) behind us and he was doing a good job pushing,” Byron said. “It just seemed like we couldn’t get enough help from the third guy in line, and that’s what it takes here to be successful. For whatever reason, the top lane just couldn’t get the runs off the corner at the right time to get connected. We’d get connected too late and then get a little bit squirrely and lose our momentum.

“I wish just that one time, we could have connected a little better to stay even with the bottom lane, but we were working really hard to do that with the No. 2 (Cindric). It just seemed like it took a lot of effort for us to maintain the track position on the front row,” Byron continued. “The No. 24 Valvoline Chevrolet team did a good job today. We had some issues and had to work on it. We got it better and then we were able to race there in the final stage, so I’m really happy with that.

“We always want a little bit more. I feel like we were in the perfect position there with 10 laps to go.”

Alex Bowman (48) and Chase Elliott (9) hit pit lane Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway. (Max Corcoran/Race Face Digital photo)

On top of Larson showing out at another drafting and Byron overcoming a steering issue, Bowman had an equally surprising outing after getting collected in a five-car incident on lap 44.

During a set of green flag stops, Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski collided while slowing to pit entrance and clipped the left-rear of the No. 48. After making repairs to the Ally-sponsored Chevy, Bowman fought his way up to a seventh-place finish, making the most green-flag passes in the field with 703.

Chase Elliott had the deepest climb of the Hendrick Chevys, taking the green flag from 30th. The former Cup Series champion flashed speed in stage one with a fourth-place finish, but was penalized for speeding on Lap 109, which led to a 27th-place second segment.

In what was a relatively quiet and uneventful day, the driver of the No. 9 wound up with his third top-five of the season in fifth, moving him up to fourth in the standings.

Next up, the NASCAR Cup Series returns to the site of Elliott’s most recent win 37 races ago at Texas Motor Speedway.

Find out if Hendrick Motorsports can stay hot Sunday, May 4 at 3:30 p.m. ET with the running of the Wurth 400 on FS1, the Performance Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.