Kyle Larson raced to his Cup Series-high sixth victory of the season Sunday to easily advance to the third round of NASCAR’s playoffs, winning on The Roval — the hybrid road course/oval at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Larson led a race-high 62 laps in the No. 5 Chevrolet to win in a runaway. He beat longtime rival and title contender Christopher Bell by 1.511 seconds.
It was Larson’s second victory of the playoffs, but he’s the first championship-eligible driver to win in the round of 12. The elimination race cut the field from 12 drivers to eight, and among those knocked out of title contention was Hendrick driver Alex Bowman, who was disqualified for failing post-race inspection.
Bowman’s disqualification was for not meeting minimum weight, NASCAR said. It knocked him out of the playoffs and moved Joey Logano back into title contention.
Eliminated from title contention after the Bowman disqualification was Bowman, Team Penske driver Austin Cindric, Daniel Suarez of Trackhouse Racing and Chase Briscoe of Stewart-Haas Racing.
Three of the four Hendrick drivers — Larson, William Byron, and Chase Elliott — have officially advanced into the round of eight.
Joining them for the next three-race series are reigning Cup champion Ryan Blaney of Penske, Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Denny Hamlin and Bell in Toyotas, and Tyler Reddick, the regular-season champion who squeezed through in a Toyota for 23XI Racing.
There are two Fords driver still eligible for the Cup title in Blaney and Penske teammate Logano.
Bell finished second and was followed by Byron, Cindric, Elliott, defending race winner AJ Allmendinger and Shane Van Gisbergen. Logano was eighth, while Bubba Wallace and Blaney rounded out the top 10.
Reddick won the first stage but was involved in a spin with Austin Dillon in the second stage that dropped him to 37th in position and below the cutline. He had to scramble the rest of the race to finish 11th and preserve his spot in the playoffs.
Michael Jordan, Hamlin’s business partner in the ownership of 23XI Racing, embraced both Hamlin and Reddick on pit lane after they advanced.
Logano, meanwhile, finished eighth and had been eliminated by four points from advancing to the next round until Bowman’s disqualification.
Briscoe was eliminated when he went to the garage with 66 laps remaining with mechanical damage that officially ended Stewart-Haas Racing’s shot at a championship. The team is scaling back from four cars to one next year without Tony Stewart as part of the ownership group and Briscoe will drive for Gibbs in 2025.
NASCAR opens the third round of the playoffs Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where Larson is not only the defending race winner but also won in the spring.
