Kyle Larson overcame plenty on Sunday to win for the 30th time in his distinguished NASCAR Cup Series career.
Larson passed Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman with seven laps to go, capturing the Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Florida.
Restarting fourth with 55 laps to go following the race’s final caution period, Bowman worked his way by Larson and Denny Hamlin and eventually put his No. 48 Chevrolet around Bubba Wallace’s No. 23 Toyota with 33 laps left.
But with Larson charging hard in his No. 5 Chevrolet, Bowman banged the wall hard in Turn 4, allowing Larson to move by and motor away by 1.205 seconds for his 30th career victory and Chevrolet’s third in five Homestead races.
Larson, who led 19 laps, is the third-winningest driver in the Hendrick organization’s history, trailing Jeff Gordon (93 wins) and Jimmie Johnson (83), but he had extra work to do at Homestead.
His car was struck by Josh Berry in a pit-road incident, and his Chevrolet smacked the outside wall numerous times blazing around the 1.5-mile speedway.
‘It was far from perfect,’ said Larson, a two-time Homestead victor who qualified 14th. ‘I got into the wall too many times … I had just had to keep plugging away with what I know and what’s good for me.
‘Just a lot of gritty, hard work there today between damage on pit road, qualifying bad, bad restarts, all of that stuff. … Just to keep my head down and keep digging felt good.’
After his season-best runner-up outing, Bowman said he felt he let his first 2025 win slip away.
‘Yeah, I guess I choked that one away, for sure,’ said Bowman, who held the point for 43 laps. ‘I just kind of burned my stuff up. … I pulled it off the wall too far (in Turn 4) and hit the fence pretty bad. (My team) deserved better than that.’
Wallace, Chase Briscoe and Hamlin rounded out the top five.
In the 27th Cup race in the South Florida track’s history, Bowman led 36 other cars to the green flag, but he eventually watched Ryan Blaney, Berry and Larson take the point through a caution-free start to the 267-lap race, the series’ sixth of the season.
However, with 10 laps to go in Stage 1 and Blaney’s No. 12 Ford out front, three-time 2025 winner Christopher Bell spun by himself while tight against the Turn 4 wall.
Blaney held the lead on the ensuing restart and won his second stage this season. Bowman, Briscoe, Larson and Austin Cindric grabbed the top-five bonus points in the 80-lap segment.
As the field immediately pitted after the stage, Joey Logano exited his pit and made it four-wide, wrecking with Berry under Larson and Hamlin on the crowded, narrow pit road.
Hamlin pitted his No. 11 Toyota on Lap 126 but regained the lead with four laps to go and was victorious in Stage 2 by nipping Larson, who was on the same strategy with fresher tires. Blaney, William Byron and Wallace followed.
Running third with 60 circuits left, Blaney had his engine expire in a plume of smoke off Turn 4. The 2023 Cup champion led 124 laps.
