Larson keeps Hendrick, Chevrolet in NASCAR driver’s seat

Kyle Larson pulled away on a restart with 14 laps to go and easily won the NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway on Sunday.

Larson started the final green flag run with Hendrick Motorsports teammate Josh Berry to his outside and beat Berry into the first turn. Berry, who is filling in for the injured Chase Elliott, held on for second, followed by Ross Chastain, Christopher Bell and Kevin Harvick.

It’s the third victory of the season for the four-car Hendrick team and came less than a week after a 100-point penalty against each driver for using an illegal part was overturned by a NASCAR appeals panel. It also came with a fill-in crew chief because of the NASCAR penalties.

Chevrolet took the top three spots and has now won five of the seven races this season.

All the Hendrick cars except for Berry ran in contention all race, with William Byron, the only two-time winner this season, leading a race-high 117 laps and running fourth for a restart with 21 laps to go. The field bunched up heading into Turn 1, and Bell hit his left rear quarter panel, sending Byron spinning into the wall. He finished 24th.

The cars never got on the track on Saturday because of rain, leading NASCAR to give them an extra set of tires, and even then, teams pitted for lightly used scuffs for the final green flag run. That paid off big for Berry and Michael McDowell, who stayed on the track during the previous green flag stop, then got the caution that made it pay off.

McDowell turned it into a sixth-place finish. Todd Gilliland, the third driver who stayed on the track, turned in a 15th-place finish.

THE PITS

Denny Hamlin won the second stage with a last-lap pass of Bell, then got a great pit stop to get him out first to start the final stage.

A poor next stop during that stage set him back, and he was working his way back into contention when, for the second time, he incurred a pit road penalty that took him out of contention. He finished 20th.

NUTS & BOLTS

Hendrick drivers led 229 of the 400 laps with Larson pacing 93, Berry 19 and pole-sitter Alex Bowman 9. … Former NFL tight end Vernon Davis, who finished his career with the Washington Commanders, was the honorary pace car driver.

UP NEXT

The second of three straight short track events comes next Sunday night on the dirt at Bristol Motor Speedway.