Even on a day that seemed on its face like a disappointment, Kyle Larson extended his points lead and is potentially four races away from a third NASCAR Cup Series championship.
Denny Hamlin failed to score stage one points due to a penalty on pit road and Christopher Bell was unable to outduel Chase Briscoe to win the Bank of America 400 on Sunday afternoon.
As a result, Larson leads Hamlin by 49, Bell by 51 and Briscoe by 65. Conventional wisdom says it’s probably down to the final three, but how do you discount Briscoe given back-to-back wins and what could have been three-in-a row.
Nevertheless, Larson is almost in a position to where he can start to coast, with only Talladega in two weeks, the most obvious trap race for the Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 team. To wit, he certainly isn't celebrating yet.
"I won't feel comfortable until it's over," Larson said. "No, I mean obviously Briscoe winning and having a good day, you can take big chunks out (of the lead) if you win. So yeah, we're going to go to some tracks where others are really good at, here coming up, and we just got to keep putting in days like we did today when we weren't the fastest, but still got good points."
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How’s the confidence now?
“I mean, it's so-so,” Hamlin said. “We haven't lit the world on fire by any means and we’re still hanging around. So again, it's all we’ve got right now. And obviously, we got to clean a lot of things up to get the best out of our days. But when it really counted with race winning speed today, we just didn't have it.”
Hamlin was blunt about the stakes, and says he needs to win, full stop.
“That's certainly something that we've got to do better, got to score more stage points too,” Hamlin said. “Hopefully, we won't rain out qualifying in the middle of the desert next week, but we'll just have to see where the chips fall, but we're driving it as hard as it'll go right now.”
Watch: Hamlin on losing ground in Chase battle: 'We've got to execute better'
Historically, Larson has been something of a checkers or wreckers race car driver, so does crew chief Cliff Daniels need to say anything to encourage him to be more methodical over the course of Phoenix, Talladega, Martinsville and Homestead-Miami?
“I think that's a fair question,” Daniels said. “And honestly, what I think Kyle has been growing and developing into within himself is a guy that still knows when to push really hard, but he's dialing up the calculations in his mind -- I think from different situations I've seen on the racetrack and places that we found ourselves where maybe a year or two ago we did push too hard.
“And now, I feel like he's being more calculated, more disciplined and smart just in how he's making some of those moves.”
To wit, Daniels said there is nothing he needs to tell Larson, because everything is working right now and there’s no need to risk breaking that focus or momentum.
“I think he has a very healthy picture of where we are just with the point lead,” Daniels said.
Watch: Larson on Charlotte struggles: 'I was hanging on'
At the same time, Daniels called this race a ‘reality check’ on three different occasions but this weekend was a reminder that the Joe Gibbs Racing cars still have tremendous speed and is expecting Hamlin, Bell and Briscoe to continue bringing it over the final four races.
Which is part of why Bell seemed to take this defeat extra hard. Had he won, he’s 30 points back, and this is a wide-open championship. Instead, he’s 51 points back, took some internal criticism for nearly wrecking two JGR cars before the finish line, and was very short-spoken afterwards.
“I think I’m just in shock right now,” Bell said. “I didn’t think it was going to end like that.”
He does have a Southern 500 win but there have been several setbacks in the Chase after that victory. He’s going to have to win a lot and catch a break with some Larson misfortune too.
A second place wasn't enough.
"It doesn’t do any good in the grand scheme of things,” said Bell. “I came in negative 55, and I’m leaving negative 51, so that ain’t going to do it.”
Meanwhile, Briscoe and James Small are going to need a lot more of the past two weeks. They lost a ton of points with crashes at Gateway and Bristol. They could have been 40 points closer had they defeated Larson at Kansas too.
But they have all the momentum in the world right now with nothing to lose.
"I mean, even when we were 123 out, we were still going to the racetrack just to win and the points are going to be what they are," Briscoe said. "But ultimately in our situation, I feel like you're just going to the racetrack and trying to win the race because the 5 can maintain what he's able to do and average a top-three or top-five running position.
"The only way you're going to ever cut into that gap of now 65 points is you have to win races and get that big chunk of points on him. So yeah, look, I think that we are certainly in contention. We probably need to win another race or two, but we at least have put ourselves in the ball game and that's all you can ask for. It's sickening knowing I can count literally in four laps, 75 points that I've given up in the last five weeks.
"But, to be 65 points out, that's still a great thing, even if it's a 'what could have been' thing too. You never know what it will look like four weeks from now. But we just have to keep going to the race track and winning races. If we can do that, the points are going to be what they are at the end."
And again, while Larson and Daniels have a big lead, the crew chief says this race was a ‘reality check’ because they are one slip up away from having three Joe Gibbs Racing drivers that are clustered together, which could still make this a dog fight.
“I’m so proud of our team for what we've done to get to this point,” Daniels said. “And at the same time, I feel like the next three weeks are a bit different. Of course, we've had three intermediates in a row and you go to Phoenix, which is a fast one mile track, then you go to Talladega and then back to Martinsville, so we've just got to stay true to what we've been doing and keep putting on the work and just look forward.”
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