Larson says Martinsville result 'could have been a lot worse'

Kyle Larson gladly took what Sunday ended up giving him and his Hendrick Motorsports team at Martinsville Speedway.

“I’m happy because at one point, I think I saw that second [place] was minus 40-something [points],” Larson said after finishing ninth. “The day could have been a lot worse. It’s not locked up, either, so there’s still definitely pressure there. I don’t know if I should feel pressure, but I’m going to throughout the week. Because these Next Gen races can get crazy; you can get a flat tire, break a toe link, something could happen, and you don’t get to score the points you need to.

“So, hopefully the first couple of stages go well and we can score points and then have some fun in the third stage.”

Larson’s contentment came after a long 500 laps around the Virginia paperclip. At the start, the reigning Cup Series champion was admittedly frustrated because he didn’t expect to fall a lap down with the team’s strategy of running the first stage without a pit stop.

But that’s exactly what happened on older tires as the team mirrored the race Chris Gayle was calling for Denny Hamlin.

“It was a tough stage one, and obviously it didn’t go like we wanted it to go,” Larson's crew chief Cliff Daniels said. “We were trying to maintain pace with [Hamlin]. I thought it was going to be OK, and just be reasonable to maintain pace with him, and that was looking OK until about 30 to go, and the tough part is you go back and look at history: the last five races here in the last handful of years, there has always been a caution in stage one. Of course, it doesn’t happen today, and it ended up pretty negatively for us.

“Then the opposite of stage one happened in stage two – you get all those yellows, and it kind of brings us back into the game. I honestly wasn’t sure if we were going to get stuck back there in 15th, 16th to start stage three, but we cycled well, and even for not having the pace we needed relative to our teammates, we still were a top 10 car. Not proud of coming home one lap down in ninth, but proud of the fight, proud of the effort to get us back in the ball game, come home with a top 10 and still be in a very strong points position.”

Hamlin was Larson’s closest title rival entering the day. Larson wound up 23rd in the stage, one position short of the free pass. Hamlin also lost track position on the strategy and finished the stage in 17th.

“It was difficult,” Larson said of the day. “It was difficult to mentally not get beat down and frustrated and make a not-so-pleasant situation worse. I had to remind myself that we got a lot of points [and] let’s just kind of grind our way through it and trust your team. I had trust that we would get back on the right side of things if we could ever get to the lead lap, and fortunately, we did, and then inched our way forward through some strategy. I don’t really feel like I passed many people; just kind of cycling ahead of some guys there the last couple of runs.”

The free pass didn’t come easy, and in fact, Larson missed it twice before it fell his way. After winding up one spot behind Daniel Suarez at the end of the first stage, Larson was again one position short when the caution flew on lap 199, in the middle of a pit cycle, in the second stage. Ty Gibbs, in seventh and having just been lapped, got the nod as Larson ran eighth.

It was not until lap 215 that fortune struck. Larson was running 15th when the caution flew for Hamlin and Christopher Bell, who spun in Turn 1 off the front bumper of Joey Logano.

Once back on the lead lap, Larson wasn’t spectacular but did what he needed to do to stay in command of the championship.

“I could tell that Denny wasn’t normal Denny. I don’t know if the damage affected him or just being stuck in traffic affected him,” Larson said. “But he didn’t look really any better than me. And then Bell, I could tell just had better track position than us but wasn’t very good. Then I had two teammates controlling the race up front.

“So, I felt confident that those two guys wouldn’t win unless cautions and stuff would get crazy. But once I settled into being on the lead lap, I felt OK. I could see them the whole race, so I was not wondering what was going on anymore.”

Homestead-Miami Speedway will close the season and decide the champion. Larson has a 67-point advantage over Bell and 70 points over Hamlin.

Larson will clinch the title with nine points, or by finishing 28th or better if he does not score any stage points.

“I’m glad we’re not at Phoenix [anymore],” said Larson. “I love Homestead, and it’s a great venue for hosting championship weekend. It should be a fun weekend.”