Larson took the lead early in the event, winning the opening stage with relative ease in the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. However, he lost control of the race as the strategies diverged during the second stage.
Staying out on older tires, he got sideways on the restart and quickly fell back into a mess of traffic. Now surrounded by cars with fresh rubber, he could only go backwards.
The only upside was that the No. 5 team now had an extra set of sticker tires to utilize later in the race, should the opportunity present itself.
After finally taking advantage of the extra set later on, he began his march back through the field in the final 100 laps.
Despite a close encounter with the outside wall, he fought his way back inside the top-five before a late-race caution forced an overtime finish and set up a mad dash to the checkered flag.
Clashing with an HMS team-mate
While exiting pitroad, that’s when Larson and his Hendrick Motorsports team-mate Elliott made contact. Elliott quickly showed his displeasure, but the situation did not spill over into the restart.
Larson finished fourth and Elliott sixth. The two former Cup champions then had a brief discussion after the race with Elliott leaning into Larson’s window.
“From my vantage point, I knew we were three-wide leaving,” Larson explained to NBC. “I’m just trying to leave as much space as I can. He’s [Brad Keselowski] coming out into the lane quickly because the #6 [Keselowski] wants to slow us down. I tried to leave as much space as I could. Obviously, I made contact with him [Elliott] but I feel like if I didn’t, then I was gonna clobber the #6 right in the right front. I thought the safest thing for all of us was for me to squeeze out a little bit.
“I understand why he’s mad or was mad in the moment. I hope when he sees the replay, he understands that I didn’t have any space or not much. Just a bummer but I’m glad that neither of us got tore up there and we could get a good finish.”
A difficult choice
Speaking on the final restart itself, Larson chose the top lane while Tyler Reddick, who ultimately won the race, decided to go to the inside. It was a tricky call with multiple tire strategies at the front of the field and one driver [Daniel Suarez] choosing not to pit at all during the final caution period.
“Obviously with the No. 99 [Suarez] staying out, you just don’t know what his grip level is going to be, so I choose the top. I just didn’t want to be in the same lane as him. Obviously with the pack, if I would have chosen the bottom, that’s where the No. 45 [Tyler Reddick] ended up and he came out the winner. I need to see how the replay looks, but I thought I could get to Denny’s [Hamlin] outside, he blocked me. I went to the middle, got clear of him and then he just had a good run off of (turn) two and was able to get to the bottom and get in front of me. Maybe if I would have went to the bottom and protect it a little bit, I could have been leading that. I still don’t think I would have gotten to the lead, but maybe I could have finished second like he did.”