HOMESTEAD, Fla. — Kyle Larson passed Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman with six laps remaining in Sunday’s race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, giving the 32-year-old Californian the 30th win of his NASCAR Cup Series career.
It came at a track where Larson has experienced his share of success and more frustration than he would like.
Larson, driving the No. 5 Chevrolet, sped by as Bowman scraped the wall on the fourth turn of the 1.5-mile oval while leading in the No. 48 Chevy. Larson extended his edge to more than a second over his teammate, then held on to beat Bowman by 1.205 seconds for his second Cup Series win at Homestead and his second victory of the weekend.
Larson was one win short of becoming the second driver to sweep a NASCAR tripleheader weekend at a single track. He won the third-tier Truck Series race on Friday and finished fourth in the second-tier Xfinity Series race Saturday after leading 132 of 201 laps. Kyle Busch swept at Bristol Motor Speedway in 2010 and 2017, and Larson will take another shot at matching Busch next month at the same short track in East Tennessee.
Larson said he was motivated by his result Saturday, when a late caution essentially cost him a race he had dominated. It was an all-too-familiar feeling of disappointment at Homestead despite Larson historically driving very well there.
“Proud of myself. Proud of the team. Just a lot of gritty hard work there today,” Larson, the 2021 Cup Series champion, said Sunday evening. “Super pumped. One of the coolest wins I think in my Cup career just because of all the heartbreak I’ve had here, the heartbreak yesterday. To just keep my head down and keep digging feels really good.”
He was far from dominant on his way to victory lane. Larson led just 19 of 267 laps, had to fight to the front after starting 14th, and overcame pit road mishaps and bad restarts to pull off the win — his first of the Cup Series season and his first at Homestead on NASCAR’s top level since 2022.
“Given past history, I just wanted to take the green flag and kick everybody’s ass today,” said Larson, who was 13th in a playoff race at Homestead last fall. “I wanted to get to the lead early and just dominate like I was yesterday. Then the green flag flew, and it was like the opposite. I was going backwards, and getting (mad) in the helmet.
“After 10 laps or so, I forgot about the wanting to kick everybody’s ass all race long. It was like, ‘All right, let’s try to and work hard at this and get a win.'”
Bowman, who started from the pole after taking first in Saturday’s qualifying session, was second Sunday. Bubba Wallace was third in a 23XI Racing Toyota after leading 56 laps — his most since September 2023 — while Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Chase Briscoe and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top five, also in Toyotas.
RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher was sixth in the highest finish for a Ford driver.
Ryan Blaney was running third in a Team Penske Ford when his engine blew up on the 207th lap, causing a thick cloud of smoke to cover the track and leading to a lengthy cleanup.
It had been a strong race until then for Blaney, who led 124 laps and won the first stage after starting sixth. It was the second time in three races that Blaney did not finish because of an engine failure.
“It just stinks,” Blaney said. “Led a lot of laps. Lost a little bit of track position there with some stuff on pit road but got back to third. And it was a great race between me, Bubba and Larson. … It was going to be a heck of a battle the last 60 laps or so, but just didn’t really work out for us. We’ll keep our head up.
“It’s one of those things where it’s not really going our way right now, but the good news is we’re bringing fast cars.”
Josh Berry, the Tennessee native who drove the Wood Brothers Racing No. 21 Ford to his first Cup Series career win a week earlier at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, finished 17th after a tough day on the track.
While exiting pit road on the 84th lap, Berry collided first with Larson and then Joey Logano. Berry and Logano both spun, then went the wrong direction into their pit stalls to check the damage. Larson’s car was slightly damaged from the contact.
Another incident happened on the 172nd lap. Chase Elliott received a penalty for not being part of a single-file line coming into pit road, even though he could be heard on his in-car feed saying he had veered his Hendrick Chevy left to avoid contact with a car but gave the spot back. Elliott finished 18th.
Homestead has gone from hosting NASCAR’s championship-deciding season finale from 2002-2019 — Phoenix Raceway gets that race this season for the sixth time in a row — to being out of the playoff rotation altogether this year.
Some drivers would like to see it return to the postseason, including veteran driver Denny Hamlin, who also co-owns 23XI Racing.
“I certainly would like to see it play a bigger factor in our championship,” Hamlin said, “whether it’s in the playoffs or just part of the championship race or round.”
Sunday’s race is the only Cup Series event at Homestead in 2025.
The season continues next weekend at Virginia’s Martinsville Speedway, where Blaney won in November to secure one of the four title-eligible spots in the finale at Phoenix. Hendrick’s Wiliam Byron won at Martinsville last spring.