Kyle Larson sweeps all three stages to pick up first-ever Sonoma win
By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Don Lex (LuckyDuckImages.com)
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
SONOMA-A late-race caution will always make things interesting.
However, Kyle Larson’s near-perfect performance made a caution with two laps to go meaningless.
“On a few of the earlier restarts, they were able to kind of stay on my right side longer, then it had me out to the left through two, so I was hoping to get a better launch to where I’d be a little bit clear of them by the time I got to turn two to get down,” Larson said of the restarts. “Each of those last restarts, I got good launches, was able to do that. On each of them, I felt like I lost a little bit of front grip on each of them.”
Throughout the day, Larson was the class of the field. He swept both of the stages as well. That makes him the first winner at Sonoma to sweep the stages and win the race since stage racing started in 2017.
It’s also Larson’s first victory at his home track and his third victory in the 2021 season.
He now has a series-high 26 playoff points after sweeping back-to-back race wins and all of the stages. Larson also trails Denny Hamlin by 47 points after Hamlin.
“I think there for a few weeks, I was probably over a hundred-and-something points behind Denny Hamlin,” Larson said of taking a chunk out of Hamlin’s lead. “I was like, ‘He’s kind of got it locked up.’ I kind have thought,’ Well, I mean, I’ve had a couple (of) really bad finishes, and he hasn’t had any. If he just has one bad race, we’ll be right back in it’. He still hasn’t had any bad races, DNF’s or anything like that. We’ve had a few really good weeks where we’ve won stages, won the race these last couple (of) weeks. We’ve taken huge chunks out of it.”
The 28-year-old from Elk Grove also led a race-high 57 laps on the day.
For the third straight, week the top two consisted of Larson and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliot.
“I mean, everything is kind of an open book. It has been since I’ve been here,” Elliot said of battling with his teammate. “We just have to continue to push. I don’t think anything really changes there.”
Elliot led 13 laps as well, which was the second-highest behind Larson.
Finishing third was three-time Toyota/Save Mart 350 winner Martin Truex Jr. He had a quest fo become the first driver to with three consecutive races at Sonoma since Jeff Gordon did it from 1998-200.
“They’re definitely really strong and we still have some work to do,” Truex said of the Hendrick cars. “With that being said, they’re still a good team.”
In stage one, Truex marched through the field. He started 19th and was fourth at the end of the first stage.
“The Bass Pro Toyota was pretty good,” Truex explained. “I was pretty happy with it all day long. We just lacked a little bit of speech in the five there on the short runs really mostly.”
The top five were rounded out by Joey Logano and Kyle Busch.
Finishing last was Ricky Stenhouse Jr. He wrecked in turn 1 and ended up losing his engine. For a more detailed look at Stenhouse’s day, go here.
The NASCAR Cup Series will be back in action next Sunday at 5 pm for the NASCAR All-Star Race. The All-Star Open will start at 3 pm. It will all be televised on Fox Sports 1. The next points-paying race will be at Nashville Superspeedway on June 20th at 12:30 pm on NBCSN.
