NEWTON, Iowa — The fastest car doesn’t always win in the NASCAR Cup Series, and that was certainly the case for Kyle Larson on Sunday night (June 16).
Despite the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports car’s incredible speed in the Iowa Corn 350, allowing Larson to pass at will around Iowa Speedway, a crash late in the going thwarted his shot at a win. Instead, Larson finished 34th, 36 laps off the pace and left to ponder what might have been.
“Our car was extremely good, so that’s a bummer,” Larson said.
At the start of the final stage, Larson was climbing his way back up through the field after losing track position on pit road. He made it three-wide between Daniel Suarez and Brad Keselowski, looking to make the most of a green-flag restart.
Instead, it all went horribly wrong. Contact with Suarez sent Larson spinning into Denny Hamlin, heavily damaging both his No. 5 and Hamlin’s No. 11.
“I haven’t seen a replay yet, but I guess I could’ve just not gone to the middle and been more patient, knowing how fast my car was and who I was around,” Larson said. “I wanted to get as many cars as I could in the beginning of that little run, and yeah, probably just ended up biting me.”
Suarez noted that Keselowski and Larson were not where he was expecting them to be on corner exit due to both drivers pinching down.
“Honestly, during the race, I was so confused,” Suarez said. “Like I didn’t know exactly what happened. I didn’t know if I went up or he came down.
“I just saw the replay for the very first time, and I noticed that the No. 6 [Keselowski] … had like a quarter of a car [length] from the wall, because he was trying to pinch down the No. 5 [Larson]. And the No. 5, had another quarter of a car to the No. 6, trying to pinch me down. And I was expecting those two guys to be closer to the wall like everyone else.
“I’m the one that made contact with the No. 5, and I take responsibility for that, but I feel like they were lower than I was expecting.”
Larson thought the three drivers should’ve been able to make it through the corner without incident.
“I mean, we had room,” Larson said. “We made it until the exit of the corner. And then yeah, I’m not sure if Suarez got loose beneath me or what happened. But yeah, he just got into my left rear and kind of got me out of control.”
Following the wreck,…
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