Fighting fires and close battles: The winners and losers from NASCAR at Homestead

Kyle Larson made sure everyone knew that Homestead was his house over the weekend, even while encountering a bit of frustration as he ‘only’ managed to win two of the three races at the track. His teammate Alex Bowman was left to stew over a missed opportunity while several drivers had their races derailed by contact … on pit road. And then there’s Ryan Blaney, whose engine once again failed him in spectacular fashion.

Here’s a look at the biggest winners and losers from the NASCAR Cup race at Homestead:

WINNER: Hendrick to the top

Kyle Larson, Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet

Photo by: Chris Graythen – Getty Images

Hendrick Motorsports is asserting themselves as the team to beat early in 2025, which should surprise no one when considering the history of this powerhouse organization. HMS began the year by winning the Daytona 500 with William Byron, but on Sunday, they earned a 1-2 finish with Kyle Larson and Alex Bowman. Even after getting into the wall and losing the win to his teammate, Homestead was a huge weekend for Bowman (which he needed) as put together a very strong effort on both Saturday and Sunday. In the championship standings, Hendrick drivers now occupy the top three positions in points with a fourth not far behind. And now we head to Martinsville where one year ago, Hendrick absolutely dominated the event en route to a 1-2-3 finish.

LOSER: Larson’s pursuit of the weekend sweep

Watch: Kyle Larson calls Homestead finish a ‘bummer’ after overtime restart

Seems strange to mention Larson as a ‘loser’ after this weekend, but to be clear, this is more about his goal of becoming just the second driver to ever complete the weekend sweep. Kyle Busch did it at Bristol Motor Speedway in both 2010 and 2017, but no one else has ever been able to achieve the same feat. Larson won Friday’s Truck race despite triggering the final caution by spinning out. He rapidly charged back through the field with relative ease, snatching the lead away with two laps to go. On Sunday, he made another late charge (minus the spin) and claimed victory over Bowman. All he needed was the Xfinity win and ironically, that was his most dominant showing of the last three days despite failing to capture the checkered flag in the end. And perhaps that’s what made it so frustrating for the HMS driver. Larson had lapped up to 5th place and led his closest competition by a stunning 16 seconds, but a late caution and subsequent restart denied him what was so close to being the perfect weekend. Larson was in control, but an unhelpful shove from Sam Mayer caused him to spin the tires, allowing the outside line to surge ahead.

WINNER: Allmendinger’s Homestead heroics continue

AJ Allmendinger, Kaulig Racing Chevrolet

Photo by: James Gilbert / Getty Images

A.J. Allmendinger is known for his road course racing prowess, but he’s no slouch at Homestead-Miami Speedway either. He now has the best average finish there of any driver in the Cup Series since the introduction of the current generation of car. A.J. now has four straight top-ten finishes at Homestead with Kaulig Racing [3rd in 2022; 5th in 2023; 10th in 2024; 7th in 2025] which is wildly impressive for the equipment he’s in. The veteran driver was a constant presence among the frontrunners and continues to remind us that he’s far more than just a road course ringer.

LOSER: Trackhouse flounders in Miami after starring in Vegas

Daniel Suarez, Trackhouse Chevrolet, Kyle Busch, Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet

Photo by: Chris Graythen – Getty Images

Trackhouse Racing Team has had a roller coaster start to the season, which has included several wrecked race cars. They did manage to bring home a double top-five finish at Las Vegas, but it turns out that it was one step forward and two steps backwards as they struggled to carry that momentum into Homestead. There wasn’t a scratch on any of their race cars, but the top qualifier was Ross Chastain in 25th and the top finisher was Daniel Suarez in 22nd. Chastain placed 31st and Shane van Gisbergen 32nd, both one lap down in a dismal day for the team. In 2022, they came just one position shy of winning the Cup Series championship, but that won’t happen with showings like Homestead.

WINNER: Bubba Wallace puts it all together

Watch: Bubba Wallace talks ‘really good’ third-place finish from Homestead

The driver of the No. 23 Toyota is currently facing an 85-race winless streak and while he just missed out on the win at Homestead, it was still a stellar showing for the 23XI team. Wallace led 56 laps and unlike previous races where he had winning pace, it didn’t all fall apart in the end. Between pit road errors and on-track incidents, something always seemed to go wrong when they had winning pace, but that wasn’t the case on Sunday. Yes, both the Hendrick drivers passed him within the final 30 laps, but he still managed a third-place finish and was even cracking jokes with his team as they raced to the finish line. He really needed that, and it seems like Wallace and new crew chief Charles Denike are definitely clicking early in the 2025 season.

LOSER: Three consecutive DNFs for Blaney

Ryan Blaney, Team Penske Ford

Photo by: Malcolm Hope – Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Ryan Blaney now has three consecutive DNFs after the first six races of the year, and two of them were completely out of his hands. At both Phoenix and Homestead, there was a catastrophic engine failure on the No. 12 Ford Mustang — something rarely seen in modern NASCAR with a giant white plume of smoke billowing out from the back of his car. The engine failure was especially tough at Homestead as he had led the most laps of anyone and was in a good position to potentially win the race before the issue left him with a 36th-place finish.

WINNER: Firefighting crews

For a moment, it wasn’t clear if the race weekend would even happen due to grass fires that were getting uncomfortably close to the race track. However, the local firefighting crews were on top of it and able to keep the fire from impacting the track or any structure in the surrounding area, even using the speedway’s pond water to combat the flames.

LOSER: (Not) clear out

Joey Logano, Team Penske Ford; Josh Berry, Wood Brothers Racing Ford; Daniel Suarez, Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet; Ross Chastain, Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet; Justin Haley, Spire Motorsports Chevrolet

Photo by: Chris Graythen – Getty Images

While Vegas was the week of loose wheels on pit road, Homestead was all about collisions on pit road. There were several notable moments where drivers were being cleared out or into their pit box when they shouldn’t have been or they simply just ran out of room in the tight pit lane. Chase Elliott pushed Ryan Blaney into the wall at one point, who was then doored by Chase Briscoe moments later. The Team Penske duo of Austin Cindric and Joey Logano nearly collided at pit exit, but the biggest incident occurred when Josh Berry and Logano both left their stalls and quickly ran out of space. Berry slammed into the side of the eventual race winner [Larson], leaving a hole in the No. 5’s rocker panel as Logano slammed into him as well. Both of the Ford drivers went spinning completely around, severely hindering their efforts for the rest of the day. The reigning champion [Logano] is still without a top-ten finish after six races this year.