Yahoo Autos Kyle Larson Wins 2021 NASCAR Championship, Race at Phoenix
When the final stage of today's NASCAR Cup Series finale at Phoenix Raceway began, the Hendrick Motorsports duo of Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott were running 1-2 and battling between themselves for the title. 120 laps later, Larson won his tenth race of the season and first career championship. What happened in between was far from easy.
Larson and Elliott began to fade on the long green flag run, and by 70 to go JGR's Denny Hamlin had caught and passed Elliott. Hamlin was about to pass Larson when the No. 38 of Anthony Alfredo blew a right-front and the caution came out. At the same time, Hamlin's teammate Martin Truex Jr. had made his pit stop. The caution fell at a perfect time to keep Truex on the lead lap, a window of about eight seconds that gave Truex the lead. Hamlin, already well past Elliott, passed Larson in the pits.
On the restart that followed, Larson dove to the inside of the two Penske cars that re-started on the second row. The big swing could have moved him back to third. Instead, it dropped him to fifth. His teammate Elliott caught Hamlin for second, but could not complete the pass. Truex led, Hamlin began to reel him in, and the race for the title seemed set to be decided between the JGR Toyotas.
Then, the No. 13 of David Starr blew a brake rotor. Another caution, this time for debris on the track. 25 to go.
There was no strategy left to decide. Everyone in the field knew they needed four tires to the end of the race. Larson came into the pit lane fourth. With an overwhelmingly quick stop and the pole sitter's #1 pit stall, he came out in the lead.
And he never looked back. Truex climbed to second after his teammate Hamlin's poor restart and hunted him for the entire run, but he never got within range to make a move for the lead. Denny Hamlin fell to third on the restart, then fourth after being passed early by Chase Elliott. He got past Elliott, but never ran down his teammate to even get a shot at Larson. It was enough for Kyle Larson to win his tenth race of the year, securing his first-ever championship.
The title comes a season after Larson's firing from Chip Ganassi Racing and subsequent indefinite suspension from NASCAR for using a racial slur during an iRacing broadcast. Larson said in a letter published late last year that he spent the rest of that season away from stock car racing, alternating between sprint car races and experiences to educate himself on the damaging effect racism, and racism targeted at Black communities in particular, has had on America. Weeks later, he signed with Hendrick Motorsports to effectively replace the retiring Jimmie Johnson.
In the year that followed, he has been a dominant force on the 1.5-mile intermediates and road courses. He combined for seven wins on the two track types, more than his six career wins in the first seven years of his career. Three of those, one at the Charlotte roval and two at intermediate ovals in Texas and Kansas, came in the past month and a half. It means he ends the season on an impressive streak of four wins in five races, capping off a season that also saw him set a record for total laps led.
The title means Denny Hamlin has once again come up short. While his total wins paled in comparison to Larson, the Toyota driver held consistently close to Larson throughout the season and would have been in contention for a title today without any playoff format. The three-time Daytona 500 winner remains one of the winningest drivers without a championship in NASCAR history. He finishes the season in third, between former champions Martin Truex Jr. and Chase Elliott. It makes him the only driver in this season's Championship Four to leave Phoenix without a career championship.
Larson's fight to defend his title officially begins at February's Daytona 500, but he and the NASCAR field will debut the Next Gen car in an exhibition race at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum two weeks before that race.
You Might Also Like
