Kyle Larson led home Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman at the Atlanta Motor Speedway as the team continued its dominant start to the NASCAR campaign.
Coming hot on the heels of his debut victory in Las Vegas, Larson looked to be making it back-to-back wins having won the first two stages and led for 269 laps in Atlanta. With only ten laps remaining, Larson remained in the lead but was pipped for the race win by Ryan Blaney as he started to lose grip.
It’s media time for these two teammates after racing their way to top-three finishes @amsupdates!@KyleLarsonRacin | @Alex_Bowman pic.twitter.com/hbQYIOH998
— Hendrick Motorsports (@TeamHendrick) March 21, 2021
“I think he (Blaney) just got a lot better that last stage, and that changed up my flow of the race a little bit,” Larson is quoted on nascar.com. “I could get out to such big leads, and I could take care of my stuff and run the bottom where it was maybe slower, but I could take care of my tires.
“He was fast there (in the final run), and I just wanted to maintain that gap that I had, so I had to run in the faster part of the race track and just used my stuff up. He was a lot better than me there late in the run. I hate to lead a lot of laps and lose, but we had a really good car that we brought to the track. Our (No. 5) Hendrick Cars Chevy was stupid-fast there for a long time. I don’t know if we got that much worse, or if he got way better.”
Making it another successful outing for the Acronis partner team was Alex Bowman in the No.48 car, carving his way through the pack to finish 3rd having started the race in 14th place.