Kyle Larson sweeps The Glen

Chase Elliott might have secured the NASCAR Cup Series regular season championship during Sunday’s Watkins Glen International event, but he was not in a celebratory mood by the end when Hendrick Motorsports team-mate Kyle Larson moved him aside on the final restart with five laps remaining for the win.

A caution for Loris Hezemans‘ beached car on lap 84 set up a late restart with Elliott in front of Larson. However, Larson made an aggressive move on the inside as they approached the first corner that resulted in contact. Elliott was shuffled behind Larson and A.J. Allmendinger and ultimately had to settle for fourth.

Larson also won Saturday’s Xfinity Series race to mark his first career weekend sweep. Allmendinger finished second in both events, making the pair the first 1–2 finishers in a given weekend’s Cup and Xfinity races in those exact positions since Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch at New Hampshire in 2014.

“I had the restart before, I kind of got put in a bad spot because he had the dominant position on me with the nose ahead,” Larson explained in his post-race press conference. “Every time I was in the right lane yesterday in Xfinity, I was in the same spot, I would always get pinched into the kerb. A lot of times I got passed by the time we got to turn two.

“I figured it was probably going to be the last restart of the weekend. I told myself if I had a nose ahead of him before we got to the braking zone, I was going to have to try my best to maintain that, not let him get a nose ahead of me, pinch my corner off, end my chance of winning. I had a good restart. I got in there hot. Did what I had to do to win. Again, I’m not necessarily proud of it, especially with a teammate, but I feel like I had to execute that way to get the win.”

Elliott simply gave his congratulations to Larson in his post-race interview, though his frustrations were evident as he inadvertently said he was “looking forward to going to Bristol next week” (the next race is Daytona). The team-mates had clashed at Fontana in February while fighting for the lead late, also eventually resulting in a Larson win. Larson commented they “were able to talk after the incident at Auto Club, moved on past that pretty quickly. I haven’t seen an interview. I haven’t seen anything about Chase today. I think at Auto Club it was more of an accident. Today it was hard racing at the end on a restart. I’m sure it will warrant some sort of conversation, but I don’t know.”

While Elliott led a race-high twenty-five laps, the Fords of Chase Briscoe and Joey Logano won the two stages. Logano finished third while Briscoe was plagued by a broken toe link and placed twenty-fifth. Fellow Ford Michael McDowell led fourteen laps, his most on a road course, to score a sixth but will need to win at Daytona to clinch a playoff spot; he won the Daytona 500 in 2021.

“It is disappointing. I don’t think we quite had enough for the #9 or the #5,” McDowell commented. “I tried to hold them off as long as I could, they just had a bit of pace on me. They were pushing me hard enough that I was getting wide and making mistakes. I tried to make a move on that second-to-last restart there and got a pretty good run on the #5 and went to the inside and it just didn’t work out. We got jammed up on the bottom and everyone was smashing into each other and we lost a couple of spots. That was pretty much it at that point. It is just disappointing.”

Daniel Suárez was the highest finisher of the record six drivers from outside the United States in the race. The other five were part-timers, with Mike Rockenfeller topping them in thirtieth in his maiden Cup start. Fellow newcomer Kimi Räikkönen ran in the top ten before crashing out and finishing thirty-seventh, one spot behind fellow Formula One alumnus Daniil Kvyat. Hezemans and Kyle Tilley, the other international drivers, respectively finished thirty-third and thirty-ninth (the latter with a steering failure).

Race results

Finish	Start	Number	Driver	Team	Manufacturer	Laps	Status
1	2	5	Kyle Larson	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	90	Running
2	6	16	A.J. Allmendinger*	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	90	Running
3	20	22	Joey Logano	Team Penske	Ford	90	Running
4	1	9	Chase Elliott	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	90	Running
5	9	99	Daniel Suárez	Trackhouse Racing Team	Chevrolet	90	Running
6	3	34	Michael McDowell	Front Row Motorsports	Ford	90	Running
7	5	8	Tyler Reddick	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	90	Running
8	38	20	Christopher Bell	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	90	Running
9	7	17	Chris Buescher	RFK Racing	Ford	90	Running
10	31	43	Erik Jones	Petty GMS Motorsports	Chevrolet	90	Running
11	29	41	Cole Custer	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	90	Running
12	24	4	Kevin Harvick	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	90	Running
13	8	2	Austin Cindric	Team Penske	Ford	90	Running
14	11	48	Alex Bowman	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	90	Running
15	21	47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	JTG Daugherty Racing	Chevrolet	90	Running
16	28	42	Ty Dillon	Petty GMS Motorsports	Chevrolet	90	Running
17	12	3	Austin Dillon	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	90	Running
18	13	31	Justin Haley	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	90	Running
19	15	6	Brad Keselowski	RFK Racing	Ford	90	Running
20	22	11	Denny Hamlin	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	90	Running
21	18	1	Ross Chastain	Trackhouse Racing Team	Chevrolet	90	Running
22	4	24	William Byron	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	90	Running
23	25	19	Martin Truex Jr.	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	90	Running
24	26	12	Ryan Blaney	Team Penske	Ford	90	Running
25	14	14	Chase Briscoe	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	90	Running
26	16	45	Ty Gibbs*	23XI Racing	Toyota	90	Running
27	32	7	Corey LaJoie	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet	90	Running
28	30	21	Harrison Burton	Wood Brothers Racing	Ford	90	Running
29	35	10	Aric Almirola	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	90	Running
30	33	77	Mike Rockenfeller	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet	90	Running
31	17	15	Joey Hand	Rick Ware Racing	Ford	90	Running
32	10	18	Kyle Busch	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	89	Running
33	34	27	Loris Hezemans*	Team Hezeberg	Ford	89	Running
34	39	51	Cody Ware	Rick Ware Racing	Ford	88	Running
35	23	23	Bubba Wallace	23XI Racing	Toyota	83	Suspension
36	36	26	Daniil Kvyat	Team Hezeberg	Toyota	58	Running
37	27	91	Kimi Räikkönen	Trackhouse Racing Team	Chevrolet	44	Accident
38	19	38	Todd Gilliland	Front Row Motorsports	Ford	28	Rear End
39	37	78	Kyle Tilley	Live Fast Motorsports	Ford	15	Steering