Kyle Larson Wins The NASCAR Cup Series Championship In Overtime After Denny Hamlin Dominated The Race
Denny Hamlin drove one of the most dominant NASCAR Cup Series Championship races ever on Sunday and was three laps from the title when it all went wrong for him at Phoenix Raceway.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver started from pole and would end the day with the most laps led, but not the one that counted the most.
A restart with 28 laps to go saw the Championship 4 at the front of the pack with Kyle Larson and Chase Briscoe on the front row with fresh outside tires and Hamlin and William Byron behind them with four.
Larson and Byron got by their teammates on the first lap, then Hamlin moved in front of Byron and drove away.
But In a day defined by tire failures, including a flat that Hamlin suffered on his way to pit road earlier in the race, Byron, now running three seconds back in second, blew his right front tire and ended up in the wall just more than three laps from the finish.
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All of the leaders pitted for fresh rubber and Hamlin opted for four tires while most of the others, including Kyle Larson, took two. That dropped Hamlin back to ninth for the restart with Larson two rows ahead of him in sixth.
Hamlin tried to go to the inside of the dogleg turn, but just didn’t have enough to make a big gain, while Larson’s car was faster than expected and was able to stay ahead to finish third behind Blaney and Brad Keselowski to take the title, while Hamlin settled for sixth. This after Larson went down lap down earlier in the race with a flat and was only able to get back onto the lead lap with a lucky dog pass around from a later caution.
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“There’s nothing I could do different,” Hamlin said after the race. “I prepared as good as I could coming into the weekend and my team gave me a fantastic car. It just didn’t work out.”
“What can you do, it’s just not meant to be.”
Hamlin remains the driver with the most wins without a championship at 60 ahead of Junior Johnson at 50. A victory at Phoenix would’ve moved him off that list and also into ninth on the all-time wins list ahead of Kevin Harvick, with whom he is currently tied.
For Larson, it was his second NASCAR Cup Series title and the 15th for Hendrick Motorsports. He joins Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson on the list of drivers who have won multiple championships for the team.
“Honestly, I can’t believe it. Like, we didn’t lead a lap today. Somehow won the championship,” Larson said on the front stretch after he got out of his car.
“I mean, really, I’m just speechless. I can’t believe it. We had an average car at best. We had the right front go down, lost a lap. Got saved by the caution. Did the wave-around. Was really bad that run. We took two tires. I was like, Oh, God, here we go. We’re going to go to the back now. It had a lot more grip than I anticipated. We got lucky with the final caution. I was really hoping we were going to take two again. I felt like I learned a lot on that restart, bombing one and two really hard. Thought I could do the same thing if we got another one.”
This will likely be the last season that the NASCAR championship is decided with a winner-take-all race as the series has indicated the playoffs format will be changed next year, but has not yet revealed the new one.