Following a run-in with Martin Truex Jr. on Lap 246 of 267 as both entered pit road, Larson came out with the lead for the final time.
He quickly cleared Denny Hamlin on the restart and held off repeated challenges from A.J. Allmendinger and then Ross Chastain over the final 16 laps, finally clearing Chastain by 1.261 seconds to claim the victory at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The win is the third this season for Larson, the reigning series champion who had already been eliminated from the 2022 playoffs.
However, with the victory his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team does advance to the owner’s Championship 4 and Larson will have the opportunity in two weeks to win the owner’s title for his team.
“Definitely the best run we’ve had all year long. We’ve been capable of it I feel like many weekends, we just haven’t quite put it all together,” Larson said. “Cliff (Daniels, crew chief) gave a great speech this morning and got us all ready to go and focused and I did my best to keep it out of the wall. I got in the wall a few times but I could still make speed doing that.
“Amazing race car. I knew that that last run was going to be short enough where I was going to be in some sort of trouble there, but thankfully A.J. and Ross were racing hard behind me.
“Happy for our team, and we get to go race for an owner’s title in Phoenix in a couple weeks. We’re still technically not out of it. I can’t win the (driver’s) championship, but it means more to me to win it as a team. We’re going to go to Phoenix and try to get another championship.”
While the end of the race provided drama, Larson left little in doubt who had the best car much of the race.
Once he made his way into the lead for the first time on Lap 27, there were few who could contend with Larson and his No. 5 Chevrolet. He led 199 laps and at one point built up a more than 9-second lead.
He did face obstacles, including losing the lead during the final round of green-flag pit stops due to an untimely caution and the run-in with Truex on his final pit stop when it appeared Truex suddenly slowed dramatically in front of him.
Larson got into the rear of Truex’s No. 19 Toyota and spun him into his pit stall. Truex was able to complete his pit stop but lost several positions with the extended stop.
“I was just going behind him, and he had a hard left and was hard on the brakes at the same time, and I ran right in the back of him,” Larson said. “My…
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