Win eludes Hendrick despite the team’s strongest Talladega in 14 years

For the first time since 2011, Hendrick Motorsports managed to place all four of their cars in the top ten at Talladega Superspeedway. They won that race with Jimmie Johnson, but unfortunately for HMS, the best result they could manage this weekend was only third.

In the closing laps, the Hendrick duo of William Byron of Alex Bowman led the outside lane while Kyle Larson was the second car on the inside behind eventual race winner Austin Cindric. There were moments where Larson cleared his teammates, but he never chose to move up in front of them. Ryan Preece, who was right behind Larson, did just that and nearly won the race as a result. 

Larson’s decision to stay low

“I don’t think there was anything I could have done on the final lap,” explained Larson as he reflected on the finish. “The only kind of moment I had to get to the front row is when we got pushed out in front of William. I wanted to take it. I felt like the gap was too big. The 60 [Preece] barely got clear, got up there and got rolling. “I was second inside, just going to do everything I could to advance our lane, open it up to where I could get to the outside. We were all just pushing so equally that it kept the lanes kind of jammed up. I needed something else to kind of happen, maybe them blocking each other or something.”

Larson still leaves Talladega with his best result yet at the track, finishing third and leading the HMS quartet. He also won the opening stage of the race.

But what happened to Byron and Bowman in the top lane? Byron remained committed to pushing Preece, especially after he became disconnected from his teammate Bowman on the final lap, who got shuffled out of line soon after. Both Byron and Larson could only shove the two Ford drivers directly ahead of them, never making a move themselves. Byron ended up finishing fourth while Bowman faded to ninth, and Chase Elliott quietly finished seventh.

“Not a great day,” said Bowman, who lost out on a top-five at the very end. “I felt like most of the moves I made throughout the day were a net loss. Just one of those days where none of it worked out. There at the end, the 24 [Byron] kind of zigged left down the backstretch as I got to him and that broke us apart and let the 60 [Preece] get up and take control of the race from there. Hate that for everybody from HMS. I thought we were sitting in a good spot and unfortunately, it just didn’t work out.”

The good news for HMS is that they remain firmly in control of the regular season standings with Byron leading the way, 32 points clear of Larson.