RICHMOND, VA. – With the benefit of a fast final pit stop, Kyle Larson put his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet out front at Richmond Raceway and then held off the field in the last 25 laps of Sunday’s Toyota Owners 400 to earn his first NASCAR Cup Series victory of the 2023 season.
Larson rallied from an incident on pit road, where he bumped Daniel Suarez and sustained minor damage to his Chevrolet.
Second was Josh Berry, Larson’s Hendrick teammate and the fill-in driver for injured Chase Elliott, still recovering from a leg injury suffered in a snowboarding accident. His margin over second-place Josh Berry was 1.535 seconds. Following in the top five were Ross Chastain, Christopher Bell, and Kevin Harvick.
The race to the finish was set up by a caution flag with 30 laps to go, bunching the field with teams rolling along on different tire strategies. At the following green flag, Larson, Berry, Martin Truex Jr., and William Byron were in front. Truex had held the lead but lost a shot at the win because of the caution. When he and the other leaders pitted, Truex had only a set of used tires to use for the final laps, putting him at a significant disadvantage.
Larson was the sixth different winner in the seven NASCAR Cup Series races run this season.
There were eight caution periods for a total of 54 laps. Twenty-four of the 37 drivers in the race finished on the lead lap.
Alex Bowman leaves Richmond as the championship leader with a four-point advantage over second-place Ross Chastain.
Stage 1 Winner: William Byron of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet)
Stage 2 Winner: Denny Hamlin of Joe Gibbs Racing (Toyota)
SHR Race Finish:
- Kevin Harvick (Started 10th, Finished 5th / Running, completed 400 of 400 laps)
- Chase Briscoe (Started 19th, Finished 12th / Running, completed 400 of 400 laps)
- Aric Almirola (Started 32nd, Finished 13th / Running, completed 400 of 400 laps)
- Ryan Preece (Started 33rd, Finished 18th / Running, completed 400 of 400 laps)
SHR Points:
- Kevin Harvick (5th with 227 points, 36 out of first)
- Chase Briscoe (21st with 122 points, 141 out of first)
- Aric Almirola (27th with 94 points, 169 out of first)
- Ryan Preece (28th with 88 points, 175 out of first)
SHR Notes:
Harvick earned his third top-five and his fourth top-10 of the season. It was also his 18th top-five and series-leading 30th top-10 in 44 career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Richmond.
Harvick equaled his best result so far this season. He also finished fifth on Feb. 26 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California, and March 12 at Phoenix Raceway.
“We didn’t have a very smooth day and the car didn’t really do anything that I wanted it to do to have a shot at winning, but we fought hard all day. We were definitely expecting to be a little bit better, but that’s the way it goes,” said Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 4 GEARWRENCH Ford Mustang.
This was Harvick’s fourth straight top-10 at Richmond. He finished eighth in September 2021, second in April 2022 and he won in the series’ prior visit to the track last August. Harvick finished fourth in Stage 1 to earn seven bonus points and ninth in Stage 2 to earn two more bonus points.
This was Briscoe’s second straight top-15. He finished 15th last Sunday at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas. Briscoe finished 10th in Stage 2 to earn a bonus point.
“We were just like a 12th-place car all day. The whole day we ran between 10th and 15th and just kind of depended on restarts and pit road. That kind of determined where we would fall out. The long-run speed wasn’t probably as good as what we needed it to be, and our short-run speed was kind of just OK to kind of hang on. So for how our season has been going, this was honestly a good day – just to kind of run 10th to 15th all day long and not have anything crazy happen. I’m looking forward to next week going to the dirt track, for sure,” said Chase Briscoe, driver of the No. 14 Mahindra Tractors Ford Mustang.
This was Almirola’s best finish so far this year. His previous best was 21st in the season-opening Daytona 500. This was Almirola’s second straight top-15 at Richmond. He finished eighth last August.
“We struggled a little bit. I feel like this is one of my better places and I just thought we were a little bit off of where we needed to be. We’ve got some work to do before we come back, but proud to finally get out of a race with a decent day where we didn’t have anything catastrophic happen. We didn’t have everything go perfectly, but we were able to get out of there with a racecar that’s still in one piece and go forward from here. Hopefully, this is the start to turning our season around,” said Aric Almirola, driver of the No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang.
Preece’s 18th-place finish bettered his previous best finish at Richmond – 20th, earned twice (April 2019 and September 2020).
“We got a top-20, but our team definitely deserved a top-10 finish. We were in it all day and my guys made great adjustments on our stops. That final caution at the end of the race threw everything off. We only had scuffs at the end and we were just off the pace. We lost a few spots in those final laps and were able to finish off the day 18th. Moving in the right direction and looking forward to Bristol Dirt next week,” said Ryan Preece, driver of the No. 41 United Rentals Ford Mustang.
Next Up:
The next event on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Food City Dirt Race on Sunday, April 9 at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway. The race begins at 7 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FOX and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
