Thanks to superb strategy, Larson makes up over seven seconds to beat Buescher and Truex, claim third win of season in Sonoma
By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Eric Thompson (Shamboozled.com)
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Sonoma-Elk Grove is pretty close to the Sonoma Raceway. Yet, it’s starting to become as much of a home-field advantage as you can have, minus that of the famed Placerville Speedway.
While he may not have as many wins as he does in the Sacramento area, Larson was able to claim his third victory of the season in Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350. This was the second win on the Northern California road course for Yung Money. It’s his first race win on The Chute configuration after winning on the carousel in 2021.
“It feels similar, I guess,” Larson said of winning for the second time at his home track. “I remember it being kind of a fairly similar you know, final stage the way that that played out. You know, I remember that year we didn’t flip the stages so we won both stages and then had to restart Yeah, like 20 something, and yeah, just drove our way to the lead there and there was other cautions and stuff but we had a great car again that day.”
To win the race, Larson had to have the perfect strategy. Crew Chief Cliff Daniels did this when he was off strategy from Chris Buescher and Martin Truex Jr. Because of this differing strategy, Larson had to come back from over 7 seconds off the lead but with fresh tires and more fuel in the tank from the 22nd spot. Buescher and Truex made their bed by not pitting before the stage break, which Larson did.
“I don’t know that I was beyond confident that it was going to work,” Daniels said of the strategy. “I just knew that when they had flipped what we were doing early in the race, it was going to put them in a position to have to pit early in the final fuel window, and from that point forward, no matter what, they’re going to be on defense. So the only way to solve to beat that is we had to figure out how to be on offense.”
He also led just twice for 19 laps and was far from the most dominant car in the race. However, this is Hendrick Motorsports’ third win in the last four road course races.
With the victory, he retakes the overall points lead despite missing the Coca-Cola 600. The only reason he missed NASCAR’s longest race was due to weather for the Indianapolis 500. He is in a position to win the regular-season points title.
“Maybe not so quickly,” Larson explained on regaining the points lead. “For sure, I thought we would still have a great shot to win the regular-season title, which there’s still a lot of racing left to be had, you know, I could easily have a couple of DNFs here coming up.”
This was Larson’s 26th win in the NASCAR Cup Series, but his 20th overall with HMS. All of these have come since 2021.
“That’s a great milestone, you know, to get 20 wins and really a short period of time is special to me,” Larson said of his milestone win with his team. “So wish I could have been here a long time ago. They’re just a phenomenal organization. I mean, it’s it’s the best in the business and your the timing also couldn’t be any better. You know, I feel like I’ve gotten to Hendrick you when they’re really at peak or back to what peak used to be.”
Buescher finished third after saving the final few laps once Larson got around him. This was a much-needed good points day for Buescher who has been on the playoff bubble.
“It was a heck of a day,” Buescher said of his day. “Really proud of everybody on this buildsubmarines.com Ford Mustang. Man, this paint scheme keeps doing us good. We keep getting so close.
It was a really good day,” he continued. “We knew it was going to be a tough one where we started, and just didn’t get to where we needed to yesterday. Ultimately my team did a great job on strategy, and I got the car a lot better. We were in a good place, just needed a little bit more long run pace, maybe a little bit more spill together.”
Rounding out the top five were Michael McDowell who finished second, Chase Elliott fourth, and Ross Chastain in fifth.
After limping to the end, Truex finished 27th. The defending race-winner had an all-around tough day but was in it late with some strategy.
The fastest cars of the day were afterthoughts when it came to the finish. Second-place starter Tyler Reddick finished 10th due to needing the correct strategy. As for pole-sitter Joey Logano, he had a mechanical issue and finished 22nd.
Denny Hamlin was out of the race on lap 2 after his engine quit and Ty Gibbs left early due to a axel on his right front.
There were 8 cautions for 22 total laps. A lot of cars were wrecked in the event.
This was the last race on Fox Sports at Sonoma Raceway for the time being. Next year, either Amazon Prime or Turner Sports takes the race with the new TV deal. Next week, the coverage shifts to NBC Sports from Iowa Speedway on USA Network.
