Denny Hamlin: Kyle Larson 'executed perfectly' at Bristol

Denny Hamlin praised Kyle Larson for his work during the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. On the Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin talked about how he could not get past Larson, who won Sunday’s race.

“It was just one of those races that played out that way to where it went green,” Denny Hamlin said. “Whenever we did have cautions, there was buffers between them and second place and third place. They always had that little extra buffer every time they did come to pit road, but they executed perfectly and Kyle executed perfectly.

“What I thought his strength was getting through traffic. When I got to him towards the second half of the race, probably about 200 (laps) to go, I’m thinking that I’m better than he is at this moment. But once we got into traffic, he could make moves that I couldn’t. I was more one-lane dominant than what he was, and I think that was the advantage that he had was just being able to navigate the traffic a little bit better than I was and was able to put cars between us there at the end of the race.”

Denny Hamlin said Kyle Larson had a ‘dominant performance’ at Bristol

Shortly after the race, Hamlin gave credit to Larson for dominating at Bristol. “You go to give that team their due and Kyle his due,” Hamlin said to FOX Sports’ Regan Smith. “Just a dominant performance. It looked like a pretty flawless day for him. It looked pretty easy. It was all I had to try to keep up there. Glad we were able to give him a little bit of a run with our Progressive Toyota.”

Kyle Larson had a memorable week at Bristol. Along with winning the Cup Series race on Sunday, the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series Champion won the Xfinity Series race Saturday and finished second in the Truck Series race on Friday. During his post-race press conference on Sunday, Larson talked about how much he enjoyed competed in three races at Bristol.

“I race a lot, so it’s cool, you know, to win two times in a row on the same weekend, but I don’t overthink it or celebrate it too much, I guess,” Larson said. “I just love to race, and I love Bristol and was really excited about this weekend. Obviously wish I could have been one spot better on Friday to join Kyle, but regardless, I had a great time this weekend and got to lead a bunch of laps and challenge for wins and win a couple of them.”