Kyle Larson beat Chris Buescher in the closest finish in NASCAR history on Sunday night at Kansas.
Larson got alongside Buescher in Turns 3 and 4 on the final lap after a green-white-checker restart and somehow snuck past Buescher at the finish line as Chase Elliott and Martin Truex Jr. tried to join the party.
The finish was so close that the scoring monitors showed that Buescher won the race. Officially, Larson won the race by 0.001 seconds.
“That race from start to finish was amazing,” Larson said after climbing from his car.
Both Larson and Buescher took two tires on their pit stops during the final caution flag. The yellow flew with less than 10 laps to go for a spin by Kyle Busch. Neither of them led the field to green with two laps to go, however.
Denny Hamlin was the race leader with two laps to go and chose the bottom lane for the restart. Buescher was alongside him on the front row and Larson was behind him on the inside. Hamlin didn’t get a great start and Larson got to his inside as Buescher took the lead entering Turn 1.
Larson was behind Buescher as the white flag flew and got a run down the backstretch on the final lap. Buescher left a lane between himself and the wall entering the final two corners and Larson squeezed in between and didn’t back down.
Buescher’s Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing wasn’t too thrilled about the outcome. It posted a picture of the start/finish line to social media after the race that shows the line thicker on the higher-banked portion of the track than on the apron from the angle of the team’s photo.
Fox’s camera mounted on the wall also shows a thicker finish line above the apron. However, it sure seems that Larson got to both points in the line before Buescher did because of his greater momentum off the corner.
And if you’re not convinced after that, here’s the official photo from NASCAR showing that Larson is the winner.
Larson is right, the race was great
Sunday’s race at Kansas was rain delayed by hours because of rain. Once it started, it was the best Cup Series race of the season.
Drivers used every lane available from the drop of the green flag and the ability for drivers to pick a different groove from the car ahead of them and the myriad strategies that unfolded throughout combined for a compelling race.
Hamlin controlled the last part of the race after a strategy call. He found himself back in the pack because of pit road trouble and used the caution barrage at the start of the third stage to pit for gas to make it to the end of the race as soon as he could.
As the drivers ahead of him pitted to do the same just a few laps later because of another caution, Hamlin found himself back at the front of the field.
He then drove away from Buescher and Larson over the final 20 laps. However, Busch’s spin on lap 260 of the scheduled 267-lap race sent everyone to pit road.
Hamlin, Buescher, Larson and Elliott were four of the eight drivers who took two tires on the final pit stop. Truex left pit road in ninth, the first of the drivers who took four tires. And had the race gone another lap, Truex would likely have won. He gained four spots on the penultimate lap.
After the first two stages went caution-free, the start of the third stage was a mess. Laps 175 through 197 featured four caution flags.
Hamlin ended up leading six times for 71 laps, while Larson led six times for 63 laps. Buescher led for 54 laps and Ross Chasten led for 54 laps, though his car tailed off considerably as the race went on.
The closest finishes in NASCAR history
Larson’s victory is the 12th finish in electronic timing history with a margin of victory that’s less than 0.01 seconds and the second finish of the season with a finish less than 0.005 seconds.
Sunday’s race edges the 2003 spring Darlington race for the closest finish in NASCAR Cup Series history. That iconic finish featured a door-slamming battle between Ricky Craven and Kurt Busch for the checkered flag and had an official margin of victory of 0.002 seconds.
The 2011 spring race at Talladega also had a 0.002-second margin when Jimmie Johnson beat Clint Bowyer at the checkered flag.
The second race of the 2024 season is now the fourth-closest finish in NASCAR history. Daniel Suarez’s win over Ryan Blaney at Atlanta had a margin of 0.003 seconds and was the third-closest win ever until Sunday.
Race results
1. Kyle Larson
2. Chris Buescher
3. Chase Elliott
4. Martin Truex Jr.
5. Denny Hamlin
6. Christopher Bell
7. Alex Bowman
8. Kyle Busch
9. Noah Gragson
10. Michael McDowell
11. Brad Keselowski
12. Ryan Blaney
13. John Hunter Nemechek
14. Todd Gilliland
15. Josh Berry
16. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
17. Bubba Wallace
18. Justin Haley
19. Ross Chastain
20. Tyler Reddick
21. Chase Briscoe
22. Corey Heim
23. William Byron
24. Carson Hocevar
25. Austin Dillon
26. Corey LaJoie
27. Daniel Suarez
28. Ryan Preece
29. Zane Smith
30. Daniel Hemric
31. Derek Kraus
32. Ty Gibbs
33. Austin Hill
34. Joey Logano
35. Riley Herbst
36. Harrison Burton
37. Austin Cindric
38. Jimmie Johnson
Source Agencies
