Larson Wins Again at Michigan

Larson celebrates the win by performing burnouts in Victory Lane. (Photo: Getty Images)

Race Results

Kyle Larson scored his second consecutive win at Michigan International Speedway when he took the checkered flag in Sunday's FireKeepers Casino 400.

Larson held off the field in a restart with five laps to go and went on to score his second win of the 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season. He won last year’s August race at Michigan and his victory on Sunday made it back-to-back victories at the two-mile track.

“What a great Father’s Day present for myself and all the other fathers out there,” Larson said in Victory Lane. “My dad is here today, too. So, I’m looking forward to celebrating with him. We’ve been so close to so many other wins. This is our second Cup win of the year, but we’ve had six second place finishes. All-in-all, it’s a good season so far and we’ll continue to keep building on what we’ve got.”

Chase Elliott tried to mount a challenge for the win but had to settle for second, his third consecutive runner-up Michigan finish.

Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin and Jamie McMurray rounded out the top five.

“Proud of the effort,” said Logano, who took fresh tires on late caution while the leaders stays out.” I wish I could have the last restart back. I think I could have gotten to second. I wasn’t able to stay attached to the 42. I had a good start but the whole bottom lane was able to stack up really good and push ahead and then Denny (Hamlin) slid up in front of us; just racing there. Turning the momentum a bit and bringing home a solid top-five and change things.”

Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Busch, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jimmie Johnson completed the first 10 finishers.

Larson led four times for 96 laps, including the final 15.

The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series now heads to Sonoma Raceway next Sunday afternoon.

How Larson Won: Larson survived a couple of late restarts to keep the advantage as he had the top spot with both 10 and five laps to go. In both instances, he got a good jump when the green flag appeared and on what turned out to be the day’s final restart, Larson jumped ahead to a comfortable advantage and was able to score career victory number three.

Who Had a Good Day: Logano scored his ninth straight top-10 finish at Michigan, ended a five race streak of finishes outside the top 20 in 2017…Hamlin had his third top-five performance of 2017...Earnhardt Jr. bounced back from his blown engine last week at Pocono to score his third top-10 finish of the season.

Who Had a Bad Day: Danica Patrick was caught in a late race restart accident when she slid into the inside retaining wall on the backstretch and ended up finishing last in the 37-car field…Clint Bowyer was in the front of the field for most of the afternoon but he slammed into the wall late in the race and finished 26th…last week’s Pocono winner Ryan Blaney was strong but he too was a victim of a late race restart when he slid back and after some contact with a number of cars finally came home 25th.

What Else Happened: Clean air was the key in the first two stages with drivers who got ahead of the field enjoying an advantage namely Truex Jr., who raced to the stage wins. Larson was another beneficiary but things changed late when fuel mileage began to come into play. Kyle Busch had the top spot late but he was short on fuel though ultimately though it didn’t matter since late cautions and restarts jumbled up the field.

Quotable: "We've had a rough month and a half. We stopped the bleeding today," Joey Logano

Notable: All three of Larson’s Cup wins have come at either Auto Club Speedway or Michigan…McMurray scored only his second top-five finish in 29 Michigan races…Larson is the fourth repeat winner of 2017.