Kyle Larson wins 2021 NASCAR Cup Series championship

The final race of the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season and the Gen-6 car culminated in the Championship Round at Phoenix Raceway. In a battle of Hendrick Motorsports‘ Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott and Joe Gibbs Racing‘s Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr., it was Larson who came out on top for his first title.

Larson won the pole ahead of Elliott, while Hamlin qualified six and Truex twelfth.

Stage #1

Corey LaJoie was behind the opening stage’s two cautions after contact with Bubba Wallace on lap six, which sent Wallace into the wall, and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. on lap 15, causing Stenhouse to spin. After Larson and Elliott led through the two incidents, Ryan Blaney took the lead on the lap 21 restart.

Blaney led until Kevin Harvick took the position on lap 49. The two battled with Truex before the latter won out and drove off to the stage win. Harvick, Elliott, Larson, William Byron, Cole Custer, Blaney, Kurt Busch, and Matt DiBenedetto rounded out the top ten. Busch, along with Ross Chastain, were participating in the final NASCAR race for Chip Ganassi Racing before the team’s assets and Chastain head to Trackhouse Racing Team and Busch moves to 23XI Racing.

Stage #2

Elliott and Truex led the field to begin the second stage. After a lap of jockeying, the championship drivers occupied the top four.

Truex returned to the lead on lap 120. Eight laps later, Quin Houff wrecked to mark the next caution and a disappointing end to StarCom Racing, who announced they have sold their charter for the 2022 season. Busch suffered a speeding penalty during the ensuing stop, and he did not have much time to make a charge before the next caution came out a lap later for Stenhouse’s crash. Elliott retained the top spot for the lap 146 restart.

The accidents continued to pile up on lap 154 when Chase Briscoe spun with a flat left-rear tyre courtesy of a damaged side skirt, causing him to slam into the outside wall. Tyler Reddick and Busch were among those who stayed out and became the leaders for the lap 162 restart, though Larson quickly pounced to retake the top position.

Larson would score the stage victory ahead of Elliott, Hamlin, Truex, Blaney, Harvick, Keselowski, Logano, Kyle Busch, and Byron.

Stage #3

A Hendrick duo of Larson and Elliott comprised the front row as the final stage commenced. Larson continued to lead before being passed by Elliott on lap 236.

As Truex came to pit road on lap 266, Anthony Alfredo crashed for the first caution of the stage. While Hamlin beat Elliott off pit road, Truex and Blaney occupied the first two positions for the ensuing restart with 58 laps remaining.

A lap after the green flag, Hamlin joined Truex in the top two while Larson and Elliott were blocked by Team Penske‘s Blaney and Logano. The Hendrick drivers successfully got by the Penske pair by lap 259. Much like in 2020, the top four—the Championship Four—pulled away from the field to battle among themselves.

David Starr‘s car lost its brakes after a rotor exploded, causing debris to fall in turn three to generate a caution on lap 282. Larson was the first out of the pits ahead of Hamlin and held the outside for the crucial restart with 24 laps left.

A great restart surged Larson to the lead with Truex in tow. Truex, whose car proved to be stronger on longer runs, attempted to close the gap as he and Larson dueled for first. By the ten-to-go mark, the two were over a second ahead of Elliott and Hamlin, with the latter taking third. Larson’s advantage on Truex ballooned to over seven-tenths of a second at said point.

Truex would ultimately fail to catch Larson as he drove off to his tenth win of the season and his maiden NASCAR championship. Hamlin finished third and Elliott fifth, with Blaney breaking up the contenders by placing fourth.

Larson secures the fifteenth driver’s championship for Hendrick and second straight. He is the sixteenth driver to win double-digit races in NASCAR’s modern era (beginning 1972) and the first to do so since Jimmie Johnson, formerly a Hendrick driver, in his 2007 title-winning season. It is also his first championship in a NASCAR-sanctioned series since he won the now-ARCA Menards Series East in 2012, while he became the first person to claim a Cup title in his début season with a new team since Kevin Harvick won in 2014 with Stewart-Haas Racing.

“There were so many points in this race where I did not think we were going to win,” Larson told NBC. “Without my pit crew on that last stop, we would not be standing right here. They are the true winners of this race. They are true champions. […] I had tears running down my face just doing the ride-around. The crowd was cheering loud, and it was just a different atmosphere than I’ve ever been a part of.

“This event was crazy. This format is wild. I’m glad we were able to get it done. [A] big shout-out to my parents for getting me involved in racing, my dad for everything he did, building my go-karts when I was young to get me playing around, my mom for videotaping every lap I ever raced and giving me something I could look at and study and get better. Gosh, so cool, I cannot believe it.”

Elsewhere in the field, various drivers concluded their tenures with their teams. Brad Keselowski finished tenth in his final start for Penske before moving to Roush Fenway Racing‘s #6; Ryan Newman, whom Keselowski will replace, was twenty-third. Chastain and Kurt Busch respectively finished fourteenth and sixteenth to conclude Ganassi’s run in NASCAR (perhaps fittingly, Larson formerly raced for Ganassi), while Houff’s retirement ends StarCom’s existence with a thirty-seventh-place classification. Matt DiBenedetto was twelfth in his last start for Wood Brothers Racing and Justin Haley, set to compete full-time in the Cup Series for Kaulig Racing in 2022, ends his Spire Motorsports employment in twenty-sixth. For every team, it was the final race for the sixth-generation Cup car before the Next Gen car arrives in 2022, ending a nine-year run.

Race results

Finish	Start	Number	Driver	Team	Manufacturer	Laps	Status
1	1	5	Kyle Larson	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	312	Running
2	12	19	Martin Truex Jr.	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	312	Running
3	6	11	Denny Hamlin	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	312	Running
4	4	12	Ryan Blaney	Team Penske	Ford	312	Running
5	2	9	Chase Elliott	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	312	Running
6	18	10	Aric Almirola	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	312	Running
7	13	18	Kyle Busch	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	312	Running
8	9	4	Kevin Harvick	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	312	Running
9	8	20	Christopher Bell	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	312	Running
10	11	2	Brad Keselowski	Team Penske	Ford	312	Running
11	10	22	Joey Logano	Team Penske	Ford	312	Running
12	15	21	Matt DiBenedetto	Wood Brothers Racing	Ford	312	Running
13	7	41	Cole Custer	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	312	Running
14	16	42	Ross Chastain	Chip Ganassi Racing	Chevrolet	312	Running
15	23	3	Austin Dillon	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	312	Running
16	5	1	Kurt Busch	Chip Ganassi Racing	Chevrolet	312	Running
17	3	24	William Byron	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	312	Running
18	14	48	Alex Bowman	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	312	Running
19	20	8	Tyler Reddick	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	312	Running
20	31	37	Ryan Preece	JTG Daugherty Racing	Chevrolet	312	Running
21	17	99	Daniel Suárez	Trackhouse Racing Team	Chevrolet	312	Running
22	27	43	Erik Jones	Richard Petty Motorsports	Chevrolet	312	Running
23	19	6	Ryan Newman	Roush Fenway Racing	Ford	312	Running
24	28	34	Michael McDowell	Front Row Motorsports	Ford	312	Running
25	26	17	Chris Buescher	Roush Fenway Racing	Ford	311	Running
26	29	77	Justin Haley*	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet	310	Running
27	32	78	B.J. McLeod*	Live Fast Motorsports	Ford	309	Running
28	33	51	Cody Ware*	Rick Ware Racing	Chevrolet	306	Running
29	34	53	Joey Gase*	Rick Ware Racing	Chevrolet	303	Running
30	37	52	Josh Bilicki*	Rick Ware Racing	Ford	303	Running
31	38	15	Garrett Smithley*	Rick Ware Racing	Chevrolet	301	Running
32	24	7	Corey LaJoie	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet	281	Running
33	36	13	David Starr*	MBM Motorsports	Toyota	273	Brakes
34	30	38	Anthony Alfredo †	Front Row Motorsports	Ford	242	Accident
35	22	14	Chase Briscoe	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	153	Accident
36	21	47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	JTG Daugherty Racing	Chevrolet	140	Accident
37	35	00	Quin Houff	StarCom Racing	Chevrolet	122	Accident
38	39	66	Timmy Hill*	MBM Motorsports	Toyota	57	Handling
39	25	23	Bubba Wallace	23XI Racing	Toyota	5	Accident

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