Talladega, Ala. – Kyle Larson and William Byron were sitting in prime position late in Sunday’s Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. The Hendrick Motorsports teammates were in the mix after pitting for the final time on Lap 171. Yet when the checkered flag flew, Team Penske earned its first win of the 2025 season.
Austin Cindric exited the final pit cycle with the lead, commanding the lower lane. Byron led the way on the top lane until Ryan Preece scooted by and jumped to the top ahead of Byron. The HMS duo filled the second row, with Alex Bowman in line behind the No. 24 Chevrolet as the third car up top.
Coming to the checkered flag, Byron remained committed to pushing Preece, who lost out by .022 seconds to Cindric before being disqualified in post-race inspection for violating rule 14.5.8.F (Spoiler) in the NASCAR Rule Book. Larson was bumped to second after the DQ with Byron earning a third-place finish.
RELATED: Official results | At-track photos: Talladega
On the final lap, Bowman got out of line on the frontstretch and fell to ninth. With Preece and Joey Logano — 14.5.8.E; 14.1.P overall assembled vehicle rules — both failing post-race inspection, the No. 48 car jumped to seventh in the official results. The fourth HMS driver, Chase Elliott, was credited with a fifth-place finish after the pair of DQs, putting all four Hendrick cars inside the top 10 for the third time this season (Phoenix Raceway and Las Vegas Motor Speedway).
Being in a similar position during one of the races last season at Talladega, Byron never thought about jumping out of line for the win. He hoped the seas parted ways, similar to his victory in this year’s Daytona 500 where he went from ninth to first on the final lap.
“I just didn’t feel like I was going to win from where I was at,” Byron said about his positioning. “I felt like I needed to push [Preece] clear and I never got him clear enough to make a move. He was already behind Cindric coming through the tri-oval, so my job is to push him back even and hope that I can finish third. At that point, I don’t think I ever thought win because if I go top of three like I did last year, it looks good but you’re just behind.”
Having an HMS teammate behind Byron didn’t change his thought process. Bowman was frustrated with a move that Byron made that allowed Preece to get ahead and control the outside line.
“It’s one of those days where none of the moves worked out,” Bowman told FOX Sports after the race. “There at the end [Byron] zigged left down the backstretch as I got to him and that broke up apart and let [Preece] get up and control the race from there. Hate that for everyone at HMS.
“I thought we were sitting in a good spot and unfortunately it just didn’t work out. I thought we had a shot at it, we had good strategy, good execution in the final stage. One of those that just didn’t work out.”
It wasn’t all dire for HMS. Larson won the opening stage, his first stage victory at Talladega. Dating back to Atlanta Motor Speedway in February, he has consecutive third-place finishes at superspeedways with a stage victory in each event. It’s also his second top-five in a row at Talladega.
Like Byron, Larson was jammed in line with nowhere to go. His lone option was to push Cindric, hoping to get clear where he could jump to the top. He couldn’t generate enough momentum to make that happen and settled for second after Preece’s disqualification gained him a spot in the finishing order.
“I think we were both doing a really good job of pushing the guys in front of us,” Larson stated. “Their cars were stable, so it made it easy to push them. I was trying for the final 10 laps to shove [Cindric] out clear to where I could get clear, but I only had one chance at that.
“I was trying to do everything I could to win and get clear. I wasn’t thinking about any of that in the moment, I was just doing what I could to advance my lane.”
Scoring a race-high 54 points, Larson leaped two positions in the regular season championship standings to second, chopping into Byron’s lead by 11 markers (31 points behind).