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MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Kyle Larson is on the verge of his second consecutive NASCAR Cup Series championship, but he was more relieved than happy after salvaging a nearly disastrous Sunday at Martinsville Speedway.
"It was a difficult race," he said. "It was just a bummer day. It all could have been a lot worse."
It nearly was worse for his closest Chase rivals, who missed some prime opportunities to cut into Larson's points lead heading into the Nov. 8 season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
By rallying from a backfiring strategy for a ninth-place finish at Martinsville, Larson lost only six points off his massive lead in the standings. He leads by 67 points over Christopher Bell (who finished 10th) and needs only nine points at Homestead, which is among his best tracks (with two wins in the past four races) to capture the title. Bell and Denny Hamlin, who is 70 points behind after a sixth at Martinsville, are the only other drivers still in title contention through nine races in the Chase, the 10-race championship run that concludes the season.
"I think we know," Bell said with a smile when asked about his title outlook.
While Larson had to fight for a top-10 finish Sunday, his Hendrick Motorsports teammates were cruising at the 0.526-mile track.
William Byron won for the first time since a year ago at Martinsville, and Chase Elliott made it a sweep of the top two spots for Hendrick, the winningest team in Martinsville history with 32 victories. Ty Gibbs finished third.
"It's always a really unique and important opportunity when you drive for Hendrick Motorsports to come here and try to do well," said Byron, who led 362 of 500 laps for his 17th career victory and fourth at Martinsville.
Larson started best among the Hendrick drivers in third, but his No. 5 Chevrolet plummeted early because of faulty tactics.
While most of the field pitted for fresh tires after 75 laps, Larson's team gambled by keeping him on track in hopes of an early yellow flag. But the stage stayed green until the caution that ended the first stage on the 130th lap with Larson in 23rd place and a lap down.
"We were just on the wrong side of the strategy," he said.
But so was Hamlin, who started on the pole and led 40 laps but ended the first stage in 17th after electing to stay on track instead of pitting.
He then was involved in an incident with Bell, who spun from contact with Joey Logano after a speeding penalty in the pits.
"Just really came down to us running the no-stop strategy," said Hamlin, who scored no points in the first two stages. "We just lost our track position. Once we lost our track position, it's hard to drive back to the front. Nobody else did. The first stage was the killer for us."
Antonelli clinches
MEXICO CITY -- After crossing the finish line of the Mexico City Grand Prix behind race winner Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, F1 history-maker Kimi Antonelli placed his hands on the steering wheel and his voice cracked as he said, "We did it, we did it."
Although the 20-year-old Mercedes driver finished third in the Mexican capital on Sunday, he became the youngest champion in the history of Formula 1.
Antonelli, who secured the title with four races remaining, said the final lap was complicated by the excitement of what he had achieved -- he began to savor it even before crossing the finish line.