Denny Hamlin reacts to Kyle Larson running out of fuel, missing winning chance at Talladega

Kyle Larson and the No. 5 team misjudged their fuel situation in this past Sunday’s Round of 8 playoff race at Talladega Superspeedway. It cost Larson a chance at winning his first NASCAR Cup Series race on a superspeedway.

Larson started on the front row in overtime but coming down the backstretch on the final lap, he slowed up and cut out of line. His No. 5 Chevrolet ran out of fuel. Denny Hamlin analyzed what went wrong on Monday’s Actions Detrimental podcast.

“Yes, the team cut him short on fuel,” Hamlin said. “They’re trying to get him track position with 17 laps to go, putting in the bare minimum of fuel they need to. Now, did Larson stay in his box as long as they told him to? These are all the details I don’t know. But either way, they didn’t get enough fuel in the car to get to the finish.”

Crew chief Cliff Daniels said before the overtime restart that they thought they had enough for one green-white-checkered. That was not the case, and it added to Larson’s string of heartbreak at superspeedways.

Kyle Larson recaps “bummer” finish at Talladega

“He was very sure about the numbers that he had in front of him that we could make it flipping the switch where we did,” Larson said. “Just unfortunate that it didn’t work out there. It started giving me a warning there in the middle of [Turns] 1 and 2, and then down the back it started stumbling, so I just got out of the way.

“It’s probably one of the more bummer superspeedway finishes I’ve had just because we were once again in contention, and it was right where I wanted to be, but it didn’t work out, so we’ll keep putting ourselves in contention, and it’ll eventually work out.”

A win would have clinched Larson a spot in the Championship 4, a chance to race for his second Cup championship next month at Phoenix Raceway. Instead, he’ll have more work to do next Sunday at Martinsville Speedway.

Larson is still in good position, sitting 36 points above the cutline. Christopher Bell is one spot ahead of him. If a driver below the cutline wins, Larson will need to make sure he’s at least one point in front of Bell to advance to Phoenix. Larson is anticipating quite the battle with Bell throughout 500 laps at Martinsville.

“You’ve got to assume that one of those guys below the cutline is going to win [at Martinsville]. They’re all really good there,” Larson said. “So, then kind of got to fight with [Bell] throughout the night and try to outpoint him.

“We have a decent Martinsville package, as does everybody in the Round of 8, so it’ll be a fight. Even if I didn’t win, I wish we would have had those 20 spots at least, so that part sucks. We executed a great day today. We’ll try to do the same next week.”