Chase Elliott might have secured the NASCAR Cup Series regular season championship during Sunday’s Watkins Glen International event, but he was not in a celebratory mood by the end when Hendrick Motorsports team-mate Kyle Larson moved him aside on the final restart with five laps remaining for the win.
A caution for Loris Hezemans‘ beached car on lap 84 set up a late restart with Elliott in front of Larson. However, Larson made an aggressive move on the inside as they approached the first corner that resulted in contact. Elliott was shuffled behind Larson and A.J. Allmendinger and ultimately had to settle for fourth.
Larson also won Saturday’s Xfinity Series race to mark his first career weekend sweep. Allmendinger finished second in both events, making the pair the first 1–2 finishers in a given weekend’s Cup and Xfinity races in those exact positions since Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch at New Hampshire in 2014.
“I had the restart before, I kind of got put in a bad spot because he had the dominant position on me with the nose ahead,” Larson explained in his post-race press conference. “Every time I was in the right lane yesterday in Xfinity, I was in the same spot, I would always get pinched into the kerb. A lot of times I got passed by the time we got to turn two.
“I figured it was probably going to be the last restart of the weekend. I told myself if I had a nose ahead of him before we got to the braking zone, I was going to have to try my best to maintain that, not let him get a nose ahead of me, pinch my corner off, end my chance of winning. I had a good restart. I got in there hot. Did what I had to do to win. Again, I’m not necessarily proud of it, especially with a teammate, but I feel like I had to execute that way to get the win.”
Elliott simply gave his congratulations to Larson in his post-race interview, though his frustrations were evident as he inadvertently said he was “looking forward to going to Bristol next week” (the next race is Daytona). The team-mates had clashed at Fontana in February while fighting for the lead late, also eventually resulting in a Larson win. Larson commented they “were able to talk after the incident at Auto Club, moved on past that pretty quickly. I haven’t seen an interview. I haven’t seen anything about Chase today. I think at Auto Club it was more of an accident. Today it was hard racing at the end on a restart. I’m sure it will warrant some sort of conversation, but I don’t know.”
While Elliott led a race-high twenty-five laps, the Fords of Chase Briscoe and Joey Logano won the two stages. Logano finished third while Briscoe was plagued by a broken toe link and placed twenty-fifth. Fellow Ford Michael McDowell led fourteen laps, his most on a road course, to score a sixth but will need to win at Daytona to clinch a playoff spot; he won the Daytona 500 in 2021.
“It is disappointing. I don’t think we quite had enough for the #9 or the #5,” McDowell commented. “I tried to hold them off as long as I could, they just had a bit of pace on me. They were pushing me hard enough that I was getting wide and making mistakes. I tried to make a move on that second-to-last restart there and got a pretty good run on the #5 and went to the inside and it just didn’t work out. We got jammed up on the bottom and everyone was smashing into each other and we lost a couple of spots. That was pretty much it at that point. It is just disappointing.”
Daniel Suárez was the highest finisher of the record six drivers from outside the United States in the race. The other five were part-timers, with Mike Rockenfeller topping them in thirtieth in his maiden Cup start. Fellow newcomer Kimi Räikkönen ran in the top ten before crashing out and finishing thirty-seventh, one spot behind fellow Formula One alumnus Daniil Kvyat. Hezemans and Kyle Tilley, the other international drivers, respectively finished thirty-third and thirty-ninth (the latter with a steering failure).
Race results
| Finish | Start | Number | Driver | Team | Manufacturer | Laps | Status |
| 1 | 2 | 5 | Kyle Larson | Hendrick Motorsports | Chevrolet | 90 | Running |
| 2 | 6 | 16 | A.J. Allmendinger* | Kaulig Racing | Chevrolet | 90 | Running |
| 3 | 20 | 22 | Joey Logano | Team Penske | Ford | 90 | Running |
| 4 | 1 | 9 | Chase Elliott | Hendrick Motorsports | Chevrolet | 90 | Running |
| 5 | 9 | 99 | Daniel Suárez | Trackhouse Racing Team | Chevrolet | 90 | Running |
| 6 | 3 | 34 | Michael McDowell | Front Row Motorsports | Ford | 90 | Running |
| 7 | 5 | 8 | Tyler Reddick | Richard Childress Racing | Chevrolet | 90 | Running |
| 8 | 38 | 20 | Christopher Bell | Joe Gibbs Racing | Toyota | 90 | Running |
| 9 | 7 | 17 | Chris Buescher | RFK Racing | Ford | 90 | Running |
| 10 | 31 | 43 | Erik Jones | Petty GMS Motorsports | Chevrolet | 90 | Running |
| 11 | 29 | 41 | Cole Custer | Stewart-Haas Racing | Ford | 90 | Running |
| 12 | 24 | 4 | Kevin Harvick | Stewart-Haas Racing | Ford | 90 | Running |
| 13 | 8 | 2 | Austin Cindric | Team Penske | Ford | 90 | Running |
| 14 | 11 | 48 | Alex Bowman | Hendrick Motorsports | Chevrolet | 90 | Running |
| 15 | 21 | 47 | Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | JTG Daugherty Racing | Chevrolet | 90 | Running |
| 16 | 28 | 42 | Ty Dillon | Petty GMS Motorsports | Chevrolet | 90 | Running |
| 17 | 12 | 3 | Austin Dillon | Richard Childress Racing | Chevrolet | 90 | Running |
| 18 | 13 | 31 | Justin Haley | Kaulig Racing | Chevrolet | 90 | Running |
| 19 | 15 | 6 | Brad Keselowski | RFK Racing | Ford | 90 | Running |
| 20 | 22 | 11 | Denny Hamlin | Joe Gibbs Racing | Toyota | 90 | Running |
| 21 | 18 | 1 | Ross Chastain | Trackhouse Racing Team | Chevrolet | 90 | Running |
| 22 | 4 | 24 | William Byron | Hendrick Motorsports | Chevrolet | 90 | Running |
| 23 | 25 | 19 | Martin Truex Jr. | Joe Gibbs Racing | Toyota | 90 | Running |
| 24 | 26 | 12 | Ryan Blaney | Team Penske | Ford | 90 | Running |
| 25 | 14 | 14 | Chase Briscoe | Stewart-Haas Racing | Ford | 90 | Running |
| 26 | 16 | 45 | Ty Gibbs* | 23XI Racing | Toyota | 90 | Running |
| 27 | 32 | 7 | Corey LaJoie | Spire Motorsports | Chevrolet | 90 | Running |
| 28 | 30 | 21 | Harrison Burton | Wood Brothers Racing | Ford | 90 | Running |
| 29 | 35 | 10 | Aric Almirola | Stewart-Haas Racing | Ford | 90 | Running |
| 30 | 33 | 77 | Mike Rockenfeller | Spire Motorsports | Chevrolet | 90 | Running |
| 31 | 17 | 15 | Joey Hand | Rick Ware Racing | Ford | 90 | Running |
| 32 | 10 | 18 | Kyle Busch | Joe Gibbs Racing | Toyota | 89 | Running |
| 33 | 34 | 27 | Loris Hezemans* | Team Hezeberg | Ford | 89 | Running |
| 34 | 39 | 51 | Cody Ware | Rick Ware Racing | Ford | 88 | Running |
| 35 | 23 | 23 | Bubba Wallace | 23XI Racing | Toyota | 83 | Suspension |
| 36 | 36 | 26 | Daniil Kvyat | Team Hezeberg | Toyota | 58 | Running |
| 37 | 27 | 91 | Kimi Räikkönen | Trackhouse Racing Team | Chevrolet | 44 | Accident |
| 38 | 19 | 38 | Todd Gilliland | Front Row Motorsports | Ford | 28 | Rear End |
| 39 | 37 | 78 | Kyle Tilley | Live Fast Motorsports | Ford | 15 | Steering |
* – Ineligible for points