Larson pounces on Bowman error to win another at Homestead
03/23/2025 07:22 PM
Kyle Larson took advantage of Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman scrubbing the wall late in Sunday's race at Homestead-Miami Speedway to grab his first win of the season.
Bowman led with seven laps to go when his Chevrolet got too close to the wall in Turn 4. By the time Bowman could pull off the wall, Larson was driving by on the inside, and he then drove away by 1.2s to secure the victory.
"It was far from perfect," Larson told Fox Sports. "I gave up a spot and a half, almost two spots there, by getting in the wall too many times. I knew I wasn’t going to get the best restart there. I knew I wasn’t good on the short runs and just thought if I could hold off the 11 and the 45 behind me, I could get … the top, and the 19 too. Then I got in the wall and let him by.
"I just kind of had to keep plugging away at what I know and what’s good for me. I am just proud of myself, proud of the team. Just a lot of gritty, hard work there today between damage on pit road, qualifying bad, bad restarts, all that stuff. Just super pumped. One of the coolest wins, I think, in my Cup career just because of the heartbreak I’ve had here, the heartbreak yesterday, and to just keep my head down and keep digging feels really good."
The victory is the second for Larson at Homestead-Miami Speedway and the 30th of his NASCAR Cup Series career. He led 19 laps Sunday.
Bowman finished second after leading 43 laps and starting from the pole position. Bubba Wallace, who led 56 laps, finished third. Chase Briscoe finished fourth, and Denny Hamlin finished fifth. Hamlin also won the second stage.
BOWMAN IN THE WALL. LARSON TO THE LEAD. #NASCARonFS1pic.twitter.com/cSwH6Sqx67
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) March 23, 2025
"I guess I choked that one away, for sure," Bowman told Fox Sports. "I just kind of burned my stuff up; saw the 5 coming, so I moved around a little bit. Not when he passed me, but the time before that, I hit it pretty hard with the right front and ended up just bending something enough that I lost a lot of right front feel, and then I pulled it off the wall too far right there and ended up hitting the fence pretty bad.
"I hate that for this Ally 48 group. They deserve better than that, and just a couple of mistakes there. I felt like we were okay all day. That last run was the best we were. Hats off to Ally and Blake and everybody for supporting this 48 team. I hate it for Mr. Hendrick — congrats to Kyle – and we'll go try to get another one this week."
Chris Buescher finished sixth, AJ Allmendinger seventh, Tyler Reddick eighth, Ryan Preece ninth and Justin Haley rounded out the top 10.
William Byron remains the points leader after finishing 12th. Joey Logano finished 14th after rebounding when he and alliance teammate Josh Berry spun on pit road at the end of the first stage. Logano fell a lap down after the incident.
Berry finished 17th. Chase Elliott finished 18th after he was penalized for not staying single file coming to pit road under the caution at the end of the second stage.
Christopher Bell finished 29th. Bell spun on lap 70 and brought out the first caution of the afternoon.
The final stint of the race went green with 51 laps to go. It was set up by the final caution of the day, which came when Ryan Blaney blew an engine. Blaney dominated the event, leading a race-high 124 laps and winning the first stage.
There were four cautions during the afternoon and two of them were for the stage breaks. There were 27 lead changes among nine drivers.
Larson won two of the three races he entered over the weekend. He missed out on the trifecta by not winning the Xfinity Series race.
"That’s what I’m thinking every time in the lead, especially here at Homestead," Larson said of not having a caution come out. "Yeah, just crazy. I knew me coming towards those guys, they were going to start moving around and making mistakes. I felt like if I could just keep pressure on Alex, I would hope that he made a mistake and he caught the wall there, and I got by him easier than I expected to.
"I still had to work hard, though. My balance once I got in clean air was really loose, just like those guys were. Hats off to the whole team, Hendrickcars.com, Chevrolet, Prime, Valvoline, the whole Hendrick engine shop, everybody involved, Hendrick Automotive Group. A lot of Hendricks."
