Kyle Larson Collects Maximum Points With Dominant Kansas Performance

Kyle Larson was dominant in Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway as he led 221 of the 267 laps in the race, won Stages 1 and 2, turned the Xfinity Fastest Lap, and crossed the finish line as the race winner by 0.721 seconds over Christopher Bell.

RESULTS: AdventHealth 400 at Kansas

But even with how dominant Larson was, the driver of the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet saw his hopes for a win feel questionable at a couple of different points in the 400-mile event. Over the final lap of the race, Larson saw his lead deteriorate as he limped his car around as he felt a vibration, and he feared he had a tire getting ready to come apart.

“I was trying really hard to pace myself because that was our longest run of the day, and I had just been struggling at the end of the runs,” Larson said post-race. “Chase [Elliott] was really good, and so I felt like I needed to just try to be better on my end, and I don’t know if it was paying off or not.

“I was still struggling, I don’t know if the right front was starting to wear a lot, or what, but I was starting to lose a lot of grip and then I was vibrating real bad, so I was afraid that a right-rear or something would let go,” Larson added. “Great car, great execution today for our team.”

Everything held together, and Larson notched his third win of the opening 12 races of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season. The latest win was enough, coupled with a 24th-place run by William Byron, to move Larson into the regular-season point lead.

Larson will carry a 35-point advantage into his Memorial Day Weekend double Indy 500/Coca-Cola 600 attempt in a couple of weeks.

Bell, who won three consecutive races earlier in the season, before cooling off for a couple of races has come on strong recently. Had there been a few more laps in Sunday's race, Bell isn't sure he would have been able to win the race as his car had begun to struggle on old tires as well.

"Well, I was surprised [Larson] kind of gave up on the top the last couple of laps, and pulled down," Bell admitted. "But I was struggling just as bad as he was, so I was just trying to get to the end. I know Ryan [Blaney] was coming on really strong there."

The driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota now has three top-five finishes and five top 10s over his last six starts.

The surge of great finishes has moved the driver back up to third in the regular-season championship chase.

"Overall, to get home second with a lot of Stage Points was something that we needed after the last couple of weeks," Bell explained.

Ryan Blaney had the fastest car in the closing laps of the race, but he simply ran out of time. Still, Blaney crossed the finish line 0.832 seconds after Larson collected the checkered flag. Blaney, who has suffered through a lot of hard luck in 2025, evidenced by his four DNFs, has now recorded four top-five finishes in his last five starts.

And he'll head into next weekend's NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway with back-to-back third-place finishes.

Chase Briscoe secured another solid result for the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing team as he came home in fourth. Briscoe was able to get past Alex Bowman for that spot in the closing laps, when Bowman would scrub the wall with Briscoe applying pressure.

Bowman would hold on to finish fifth on what turned out to be a gutty, impressive day for the driver of the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, who was put into the wall in a three-wide battle with Denny Hamlin and Zane Smith early in the race.

Josh Berry, Ryan Preece, Chris Buescher, Joey Logano, and John Hunter Nemechek rounded out the top-10 finishers in Sunday's race at Kansas Speedway.

William Byron's grasp of the point lead slipped away as a result of a cut right rear tire on Lap 66, which sent him into the outside wall in Turn 4. Byron would then spin onto pit road, but the race would remain green as Byron received service on pit road.