Richmond rundown: Kyle Larson earns first NASCAR Cup Series win of the season

Kyle Larson came into Sunday’s Cup race as the leader in laps led but didn’t have a victory to show for it.

Now he does.

The driver of the No. 5 car got some help from a great pit stop late and then held off his Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Josh Berry, to take his first win of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season at Richmond Raceway on Sunday.

It marked his second victory and eighth Top 10 finish in 17 races at the storied short track.

“Just a great day all around for Hendrick Motorsports,” Larson told reporters after his trip down Victory Lane.

It also punctuated a big week for Hendrick Motorsports. The organization saw the points penalties NASCAR assigned get rescinded, catapulting the Hendrick Cup drivers back into the Top 15 in points.

Sunday also marked what would be the birthday of Ricky Hendrick, the son of HMS founder Rick Hendrick who died in a plane crash in 2004.

“A lot of significance to this week,” Larson said. “And I’ll probably remember it for a long time now.”

Berry finished second. Ross Chastain was third.

5 other notable performances at Richmond

▪ William Byron: What went down with the 24 car with about 20 laps to go was the talk of pit road after the race. Byron was running well, but then contact from Christopher Bell spun him out and effectively ended his chances at the win. Byron finished P24 on Sunday.

▪ Denny Hamlin: The native of Chesterfield, Virginia, put on a show on Sunday. Hamlin was everywhere: He started 11th, then drove up near the front, then fell to the rear (thanks to an early speeding on pit road penalty), then rose from P13 to P1 to close Stage 2. That stage win delivered Joe Gibbs Racing its first stage win of the season.

A costly mistake on pit road under green on Lap 290 pressed him to 13th. The next caution emerged on Lap 305, and a determined Hamlin told his crew chief over the radio: “Get me three spots back here, I’ll get the rest.” But while his pit crew did give him a pair of spots, Hamlin couldn’t weave through the field like he had earlier on Sunday. A final speeding penalty as he exited pit road with about 25 laps to go punctuated a tough end to an otherwise good day. He finished P20.

▪ Bubba Wallace: An extra spotlight was on the driver of the No. 23 car this week, much of that because he was so hard on himself in a post-race interview after a bad result in COTA last weekend. And he rose to the challenge.

Wallace isn’t known as a short-track specialist, but he put together an admirable run on Sunday. He spent a lot of time dwelling just outside the Top 10 and even notched a lap as the leader while the field pitted late in Stage 3. An issue on pit road stifled his day late in Stage 3, though. He finished P22.

▪ Kyle Busch: The driver of the No. 8 car has claimed the most amount of wins among all active drivers at Richmond Raceway, and he started on the front row on Sunday. But contact between Busch and Ross Chastain on Lap 5 made the 8 car suffer early. By the time the team pitted for the competition caution on Lap 30, Busch was communicating with his team over the radio that he was loose coming in and out of every corner. A solid run the rest of the way saw him salvage a 14th-place finish. His Richard Childress Racing teammate Austin Dillon spent most of Sunday not on the lead lap.

▪ Ryan Blaney: It was just generally a tough day for Team Penske. No other image, however, will endure and illustrate this fact more than when Blaney’s car had a wedge wrench stuck in his car as he departed pit road late in Stage 2.

He was running loose and the team wanted to tighten the car. (Pit road crew members dove after the wrench as the 12 departed — diving after him like that wrench was an elusive running back — to no avail.) That made Blaney take another trip down pit road and subsequently sent Blaney a lap down and led to an unremarkable finish. His Penske teammates? Joey Logano finished seventh, salvaging some pit road woes of his own, and Austin Cindric finished P28.

Results are unofficial.