The Kyle Larson–Denny Hamlin rivalry is about to hit a new high, leaving Homestead. Hendrick Motorsports #5 driver led one lap, scored zero stage points, and finished an ironic 13th. Meanwhile, his Joe Gibbs Racing #11 rival took Stage 2 and had his moment. However, he couldn’t seal the deal when it mattered the most and fumbled away a potential win with two laps to go.

Both drivers are now teetering on the playoff bubble with the Championship 4 cutoff awaiting in Martinsville. Larson sits 7 points below the cutline, while Hamlin is in an even tougher position, trailing by 18. But the latter has no complaints against the former, even though his aggressive advances shook up the entire momentum of the field on the closing stretch. 

Denny Hamlin’s praise for Kyle Larson’s gutsy Homestead move turns heads

Every Playoff driver but Joey Logano and Kyle Larson locked in a top-10 finish on Sunday. And it didn’t end there—every other Playoff contender snagged stage points, too, while Larson and Logano walked away empty-handed. However, that’s not necessarily a problem for the Team Penske  #22 star since he’s already punched in his Phoenix ticket, thanks to that clutch win in Vegas. But for Larson, the stakes are a lot higher than that.

With six wins fueling the #5 team’s 2024 championship drive, missing out now would be an outright shame, especially considering some fans believe the Kyle Larson “downfall” has already begun. After all, that desperation Hail Mary with just 13 laps to go when he tried to thread the needle between race leader Ryan Blaney and a lapped Austin Dillon, cost him big. Suffering from aero damage to his car, the slightest contact with Blaney’s leading vehicle sent Larson skidding out of control, bringing out the last caution. And for that, Martinsville just became do-or-die for our two-time championship hopeful, faced with a troubling points deficit. However, fellow bubble-dweller Denny Hamlin did not ‘hate Larson’s move’ in Homestead.

In his own words on the Oct. 29 episode of Actions Detrimental, “I mean, he was going for it…. Look at the adversity that he had went through earlier in the race, right? I was behind him when he blew the tire and got into the wall.” Early in Stage 1, Kyle Larson had a tire go down around Lap 48, which resulted in his #5 Hendrick Chevy having a brush with the wall on Turn 2 — nothing major. But as he had to limp his car back to the pits, having to drag it on its underbody caused significant damage to the rear diffuser.

Larson went from starting on the front row and running top-10 to finishing the first stage in 25th Hamlin, who finished seventh in Stage 1, noted, “At that point, you’re thinking, ‘Well, they’re probably going to be dragging off some of this diffuser, and probably are not going to be very competitive from this point on.’” 

“But they found a way to make adjustments to the car and Kyle was super fast at the end,” acknowledged his Joe Gibbs Racing rival. “He ran down the #12 and looked like he was poised to make a move on him and he saw an opportunity there to get to the outside of him. Unfortunately, there was a lapped car right there.” That ‘lapped car’ belonged to none other than Austin Dillon. “And so [Larson] just got in a bad aerodynamic spot where he was in a loose spot because of where he was on the #12. And then he just didn’t have enough on the right side of his car because of the #3 [of Dillon].” Hamlin concluded, “So, it just was a tight hole that he tried to fit into and it didn’t work.”

Larson did not lose any significant track position because of this incident, although his mysterious pit troubles let him down for the second consecutive week under caution. And that would not miss the careful eye of Denny Hamlin.

Conquering pit stops, and spoilers in Martinsville

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“I mean, had [the #5 team] not had to fix the flap on the back of his car, he {would’ve) only lost one position through this,” asserted the Chesterfield, VA native. “And so it all still gave him an opportunity.” Hamlin explained what he was talking about. “When you spin out and turn sideways, there’s a little flap on the back that NASCAR makes you have to push back up. They finished their pit stop then they had to have somebody go around the back of the car and push that up…” 

In layman’s terms, the Next-Gen car has a flap installed as a safety feature on the rear diffuser that prevents the vehicle from flipping after high-speed contact. That flap had dropped on Larson’s Camaro Zl1 and he had to wait a few extra seconds to get it readjusted by his pit crew. He lost six positions because of that, and left the pits in ninth, while Ryan Blaney and Denny Hamlin raced for the 1-2 spot, respectively. Mind you, all this while, Tyler Reddick and the #45 team opted to stay out on older tires, with the final green flag run approaching. 

With 8 to go, Tyler Reddick and Ryan Blaney restarted on the front row, while Hamlin followed in third, beside Chase Elliott in fourth. Kyle Larson rolled off in 10th, but when the race ended, he had lost three spots and finished P13. Reddick, Blaney, and Hamlin would then find themselves caught in a jaw-dropping battle for the win on the last two circuits of the race. Eventually, Reddick’s #45 car prevailed over everyone else, securing the second spot for the Phoenix finale two weeks later.

However, those weren’t all of Kyle Larson’s woes in Homestead. As Hamlin’s podcast partner, Jared Allen noted, “He also had the one with (Chris) Buescher, right? Buescher spun out right in front of his pit stop and so he had to wait on one of his Stops…” Allen was right. During the first stage break caution, Ricky Stenhouse Jr’s #47 JTG Daugherty machine nudged Chris Buescher’s #17 RFK Ford and sent it spinning in front of Larson’s Chevy exiting its pit-stall. This delay forced Larson to begin stage 2 in the 35th spot. He made up twenty spots through the 85-lap cycle and ended it in 15th. 

This will now put Larson and Denny Hamlin in a precarious position at Martinsville. Both drivers must run near-spotless races and finish in the top 5. And that is only if a non-Playoff driver plays spoiler, and either Larson or Hamlin doesn’t win to lock in an automatic berth in the final 4. Statistically, Hamlin holds the better odds of winning at his hometown track, a three-hour drive from Chesterfield. He’s conquered Martinsville five times in the past, while Larson’s lone victory at the track came only last year. And that’s not all. Denny Hamlin has nineteen top-5s on the race track, while Larson only has five.

The tipping scales are heavier in Denny Hamlin’s favor next weekend. But there are fewer things more dangerous in NASCAR than a Kyle Larson, that has his back against the wall. Who will prevail at the Paperclip? Who takes the final 2 spots? There are so many questions unanswered right now. But it will all become clear when the chequered flag waves for another highly anticipated edition of the Xfinity 500 cutoff race next Sunday!