Stenhouse laments race-losing move at Talladega

One wrong move.

That's all it took for Ricky Stenhouse Jr. to lose Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway coming through the trioval to the checkered flag. Stenhouse was clear ahead of the field when he made that one move: going up high to block William Byron. It cleared the way for Kyle Larson to make one last run on the bottom.

Stenhouse went from first to finishing third. At the line, Larson led Byron and Stenhouse in a three-wide finish.

“I got so far out there, I felt like I did a good job blocking [Austin Hill],” said Stenhouse. “I kind of made him guess too many times, so he ended up behind me. So, I thought he was going to push me very well, but I don’t know if he ran out of gas. He kind of bobbled there, and then I was in defense mode and just looking in my mirror, trying to figure out which lane was coming.”

Off Turn 2 on the final lap, Stenhouse was fighting alongside Larson when Austin Hill made it three-wide by forcing his way underneath Larson. The move shuffled Larson to the middle, where he had no help, and cleared the way for Hill and Stenhouse. Stenhouse had the better run, and he was clear ahead of the field before reaching Turn 3.

Hill was making a run on Stenhouse when his car gave up off Turn 4. It left Stenhouse with a gap to Todd Gilliland, who suddenly had Byron to his outside. Just as quickly, Stenhouse moved to the right, and Larson went from fifth to first.

“The [No.] 24 was the biggest at the time coming,” Stenhouse said. “I don’t know - if I had gone down and blocked the [No.] 5, the [No.] 24 still had a big run and probably could have ripped around us on the outside. All in all, man, it was a great weekend, great day, and we’ll try to build off of that.”

The finish-line location didn’t help Stenhouse’s cause.

“That is the one unique thing about Talladega is that it’s so far to the start/finish line, and I’ve led a couple of these things at the normal trioval start/finish line,” he said. ‘They kept running into each other, and I felt like if they kept running into each other, they were going to be OK.

“I just never would have dreamed the [No.] 5 would have had that big of a run.”

Stenhouse was disappointed to not get his longtime sponsor, NOS Energy Drink, into victory lane, and noted how close he has come before at Talladega in particular. But he was happy for Larson, who is a close friend, and was glad it was him and not someone else in the winner’s circle.

“I’m glad we were battling it out; just bummed for our guys,” Stenhouse said. “We really could use a big win.”