Kyle Larson Charges Late, Capitalizes at Homestead-Miami

Kyle Larson charged to the win in Sunday's Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, leading just the final seven laps of the event.

Larson took the lead from Hendrick Motorsports teammate with seven laps to go, as Bowman brushed the wall exiting turn four. That slight miscue allowed Larson to race by, and he held on to earn the 30th NASCAR Cup Series win of his career.

Race Results: 2025 NCS Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead

It may have felt like a picture-perfect ending to the day for Larson, but he insisted it was anything but a flawless day.

"It was far from perfect," said Larson. "I gave up a spot and a half, almost two spots there by getting in the wall too many times. I knew I wasn’t going to get the best restart there. I knew I wasn’t good on the short runs and just thought if I could hold off the 11 and the 45 behind me, you know, I could get ringing the top, and the 19 too. Then I got in the wall and let him by.

"Just kind of had to keep plugging away at what I know and what’s good for me. So just proud of myself, proud of the team. Just a lot of gritty, hard work there today between damage on pit road, you know, qualifying bad, bad restarts, all that stuff."

While the win is Larson's second of the weekend and second of his Cup Series career at Homestead-MIami Speedway, the disappointments that have accumulated along the way stand out for him. Those disappointments include Saturday's NASCAR Xfinity Series race, where Larson finished fourth after leading 132 laps.

"Just super pumped. One of the coolest wins I think in my Cup career just because of the heartbreak I’ve had here, the heartbreak yesterday, and to just keep my head down and keep digging feels really good."

With his pace on the long green-flag run to end the event, Larson hoped he could pressure the opposition into mistakes. That proved to be the case on the decisive pass, as Bowman's slide into the outside wall offered Larson the chance to take the lead.

"I knew coming towards those guys, they were going to start moving around and making mistakes. I felt like if I could just keep pressure on Alex, I would hope that he made a mistake. He caught the wall there, and I got by him easier than I expected to."

While Larson celebrated the win, Bowman lamented his runner-up finish and seeing a chance at his first win of the season slip away late.

"I guess I choked that one away," said Bowman. "Just burned my stuff up. Saw the 5 [of Larson] coming, so moved around a little bit. Not when he passed me, but the time before that I hit it hard with the right front and ended up just bending something enough that I lost a lot of right front feel and then I pulled it off the wall too far right there and ended up hitting the fence pretty bad.

"So I hate that for this Ally 48 group. They deserve better than that. Just a couple of mistakes there. I felt like we were okay all day. That last run was the best we were."

Larson also overcame an incident on pit road, which left some damage on the No. 5 machine. Josh Berry and Joey Logano made contact exiting their pit stalls during a caution in stage one, which sent Berry's car into the driver's side of Larson's entry. The contact caused both Berry and Logano to spin, sending them to the rear of the field to start the second stage.

Bubba Wallace finished third after being in contention for the win late in the race. Wallace led inside of the final 40 laps in his No. 23 Toyota for 23XI Racing, but lost the lead to Bowman with 32 laps to go.

The Joe Gibbs Racing duo of Chase Briscoe and Denny Hamlin finished fourth and fifth, respectively. Chris Buescher, A.J. Allmendinger, Tyler Reddick, Ryan Preece and Justin Haley rounded out the top 10.

The NASCAR Cup Series heads to Martinsville Speedway for next weekend’s Cook Out 400, which will take place on Sunday, March 30 at 3:00 PM ET on FS1, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.

-Photo credit: James Gilbert/Getty Images