Larson Cruises To Victory In Another Bristol Romp

Kyle Larson celebrates in victory lane Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway. (Jacob Seelman/Race Face Digital photo)

BRISTOL, Tenn. – Kyle Larson’s Sunday romp at Bristol Motor Speedway was a repeat refrain of a dominating song on two different fronts.

Not only was his win in the Food City 500 the second straight day that Larson crushed the field – this time in the NASCAR Cup Series – it was the second Cup Series race in a row at The Last Great Colosseum where Larson visited victory lane after leading more than 400 of the 500 laps.

The Elk Grove, Calif., driver spent 411 circuits in front of the field en route to his 31st career Cup Series victory, second of the season, and third overall at Bristol.

Larson first took the lead from polesitter and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman on lap 40. He went on to sweep both stages – tying Martin Truex Jr. for the most stage wins (66) all time in the process – and was never truly threatened on raw speed all afternoon.

The only time Larson found himself outside the top five all day was after a green-flag pit stop at lap 390, when he came early for service, while Ryan Blaney elected to run out the fuel window on a contrarian strategy.

Blaney actually stayed on-track long enough to lap the entire field at one point, but finally had to give up the ghost with 61 laps left because he couldn’t make it from the second stage break all the way to the finish on one tank of fuel.

Larson took back over at that point and never looked back, comfortably holding off Denny Hamlin through traffic in the final laps and taking the checkered flag in front by 2.250 seconds.

“A flawless race once again here at Bristol for the (No.) 5 team. We had a really, really good car and that was a lot of fun,” said Larson after climbing from his car. “I was pretty comfortable with things all race, really. Then Denny came on really strong there before the (green flag) pit cycle, and just kept enough of the pressure on from there.

“I knew I had to make some good moves in traffic, and I felt like I did a pretty good job there in traffic,” Larson added. “Split the middle sometimes when I needed to. But yeah, just a lot of fun out there.”

From the time the final stage went green with 235 laps left, there were no interruptions the rest of the way.

In fact, the only caution outside of the stage breaks at laps 125 and 250 came when Shane van Gisbergen spun in turn two on lap 178, after the Kiwi got a bump from behind by Cody Ware.

That led to a track position race, rather than a tire conservation race, with the concrete surface taking rubber due to temperatures that were 10 to 15 degrees warmer than practice on Saturday.

Hamlin chased Larson for most of the afternoon, but just didn’t have the same edge that the No. 5 did and settled for second with his Progressive-sponsored, Joe Gibbs Racing-prepared Toyota.

“You’ve got to give that team their due and Kyle his due. That was just a dominant performance by them,” Hamlin noted. “It looked like (a) pretty flawless day for him; it looked pretty easy. It was all I had to try to keep up there. I’m glad we were able to give him a little bit of a run toward the end.

“I wish we could have gotten one more spot, but I just wanted to keep them honest there at the end,” Hamlin added. “That’s all I try to do, but he just was too much to handle today.”

Hamlin’s teammate Ty Gibbs finished a season-best third, his first top five since September, followed by a third JGR car in Chase Briscoe. Blaney rallied back to fifth with his fresher tires after the late pit stop.

William Byron, Ross Chastain, Christopher Bell, A.J. Allmendinger, and Austin Dillon closed the top 10.

Only nine cars finished on the lead lap Sunday, with the three caution periods slowing the pace for 40 laps in total. Larson’s average speed was 100.746 mph, the fourth fastest race in Bristol history.

The NASCAR Cup Series takes a week off for the Easter holiday before resuming at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway with the running of the Jack Link’s 500.

Broadcast coverage is slated for 3 p.m. ET, live on FOX, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90. Tyler Reddick is the defending winner of the event.