Kyle Larson explains how he ended up on the sand barriers at the outside pit wall at Homestead
Kyle Larson finished the race at P34 after winning the first stage and leading a race-high 96 laps due to the incident.
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Kyle Larson (Credits: @HendrickCars/ Twitter)
2021 NASCAR Cup champion Kyle Larson came to the Homestead Miami Cup race, hoping to secure back-to-back wins. He had the luxury to just cruise around the entire race and not bother about the result since his Las Vegas win had already landed him a spot in the 2023 Cup season Championship-4 race at Phoenix.
But he wanted to go to the final as the most dominant driver and went out for the Homestead win. It cost him the race as he made somewhat of a rookie mistake entering the pits that made him retire. On lap 213, during the battle for the lead, Larson followed the eventual P2 finisher, who was leading the race, Ryan Blaney, to the pits.
Rick Hendrick’s driver was determined to exit the pit before the No:19 Ford Mustang and made him approach the pit entry line faster than Blaney. He was too quick and was forced to take evasive action once the Ford slowed down faster than he thought. Larson slammed his cars into the sand barrier to avoid colliding with Blaney.
I was just maximizing all I could, and I didn’t expect him to slow down so early. I was just trying to get to the yellow line as quickly as possible and felt like I was in control, and from my vantage point, he slowed down a lot. But from there (on TV), it just looks like I bomb it in there. I just need to look at some data and see where I was relative to pit road speed and all that.Larson said, as reported by RACER.
In case you missed it: WATCH: Dale Earnhardt Jr. apologizes to Josh Berry for getting into him at Homestead, admits he ‘cleaned him out’
Kyle Larson is upset with himself
The HMS driver explained his feelings about the incident and the outcome. He said that he was hoping for a good pit cycle and wanted to control the race by exiting first. Larson added that he is upset with himself as, though the incident was caused by Blaney slowing down, he shouldn’t have been that aggressive.
I was just trying to get as close to his back bumper as I could to hopefully have a good cycle and have a better a pit stop and come out in front of him and control the race from there. Just upset more than anything with myself. Even if he did slow down, I still should have not pushed that hard. Just a bummer, and hopefully, his team can recover from it.
Regardless, Larson didn’t have any major loss at Miami; by leading over 90 laps, he has once again proved that his team had what it takes to win and has the momentum going to Martinsville and beyond. He will go to next week with a victory as his primary target and keep the solid momentum on.
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Justin P Joy
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