It took seven tries and a second straight dominant performance at a short track, but Kyle Larson finally took down Denny Hamlin with the No. 11 Toyota running right behind him.
The Hendrick Motorsports driver had the field covered for the second straight time at Bristol Motor Speedway on Sunday, leading 411 of 500 laps to win the Food City 500 NASCAR Cup Series race in Bristol, Tenn.
In the ninth race of 2025, Larson started third and dominated the field after swiping the lead from polesitter Alex Bowman on Lap 40.
He beat Hamlin, seeking a third straight win, by 2.25 seconds for his second victory of 2025 and 31st overall.
Larson led 462 laps last September to win the Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol.
The 1-2 finish between two of NASCAR’s top drivers marked the seventh time the Nos. 5 and 11 cars finished in that order together. Hamlin had won the first six, but Larson put away the Joe Gibbs Racing driver by 2.25 seconds for his second 2025 win.
The Elk Grove, Calif., native won for the third time at BMS, all occurring in the past six races, in a race with just three cautions and one multi-car incident — Shane van Gisbergen and Cody Ware tangling within the first 200 laps.
“Just a flawless race once again here for the No. 5 team — a really, really good car,” Larson said. “I was pretty comfortable with things, but Denny came on strong before the pit cycle. I knew I had to make some good moves in traffic. … Just so high-paced here. That was a lot of fun.”
Hamlin said he did all he could in pursuit of his third consecutive win.
“You’ve got to give that team their due,” said Hamlin, who won the previous two races at Martinsville and Darlington. “Just a dominant performance. Looked like a pretty flawless day for them. It looked pretty easy. It took all I had to keep up there.
“I just wanted to keep him honest at the end, but he was too much to handle.”
Ty Gibbs, Chase Briscoe and Ryan Blaney closed out the top five.
Xfinity Series racer Jesse Love made his Cup debut in Richard Childress Racing’s No. 33 Chevrolet. The Californian qualified 19th and finished 31st.
Bowman paced the first 39 times around the 0.533-mile speedway. Then Larson, who won Saturday’s Xfinity race as well, roared past his teammate and pulled away. Meanwhile, Hamlin moved up to second in a fast Stage 1.
Larson won the 125-lap segment, but it took a hard battle with Ryan Preece’s No. 60 — the final car on the lead lap — to get to the checkers, leaving just 23 cars on the same lap with Larson. Hamlin, Justin Haley, Bowman and Carson Hocevar completed positions second to fifth, respectively.
van Gisbergen got into Ware for the second caution, but the mishaps continued on pit road. While leaving his pit, John Hunter Nemechek’s No. 42 lost a tire that traveled down and struck Daniel Suarez’s No. 99 during service — and Suarez’s crew let an old tire roll into the pit in front of them. Both teams received penalties.
Larson had them covered again on Lap 250 as Stage 2 ended — with Bowman, Christopher Bell, Hocevar and Hamlin getting chunks of bonus points.
Concern grew in the Hendrick Motorsports camp when Bowman’s No. 48 began billowing blue smoke around Lap 300. The pole-sitter retired it on Lap 352 and finished 37th.
–Field Level Media
