September 8, 2025

Kyle Larson had one of the fastest cars in Sunday's Enjoy Illinois 300, but suffered a few setbacks that prevented him from winning at World Wide Technology Raceway. Larson began the race from second place, then, in just a few laps, took the lead from Denny Hamlin until the race's first caution. Larson went to pit road and then worked his way through the field throughout the rest of the stage, but fell short of winning it as he could not get past Chase Briscoe for the stage victory. Larson still scored many stage points from finishing second at the end of stage one. In stage two, Larson inherited the lead until midway through the stage, when he went to pit road for the first time. Larson spent most of the stage recovering back to the front until lap 134, when he clipped Ryan Blaney in the corner of his car, sending him spinning. Larson stayed on track and went on to finish the second stage in fourth, earning more stage points. In the final stage, Larson competed for the lead against Bubba Wallace and Joey Logano, mainly running as high as second until Wallace had trouble with his gearshift during one restart, causing Larson to get some damage from getting into Wallace and other cars behind him. This led to an issue on Larson's diffuser, causing him to lose positions as his team fixed the issue. As a result, Larson spent the rest of the stage trying to get back to the top 10, but fell short of that goal as he finished 12th. Despite missing the top 10, Larson sits at 60 points ahead of the playoff cut line entering the final race of the Round of 16 at Bristol. It is all but certain that Larson will advance to the next round of the playoffs unless he has a catastrophically terrible race.--Sean Engel - RotoBaller
Source: NASCAR.com