Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson found himself in a similar situation as last week, going down to the wire while racing another teammate in Alex Bowman in the final laps of Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Fortunately for Hendrick Motorsports, the event didn’t play out the same way as Bowman edged out Larson in a clean run. Both drivers were asked after the race if the message from Hendrick Motorsports owner Rick Hendrick had anything to do with that.
Hendrick called a meeting with the team’s drivers last week after Larson got into teammate Chase Elliott with 20 laps remaining in last week’s Wise Power 400 at Auto Club Speedway. Larson ended up winning last week’s race, but had some defending to do for the incident.
“I mean, I don’t know. I did everything that I would have done had we not had a meeting probably,” Larson said, according to FOX Sports’ Bob Pockrass. “I was side-drafting him (Bowman) as hard as I could. Would have never wanted to make contact with him before either. But yeah, I mean I guess it weighs on you after having been only seven days away from me getting into a teammate last week.”
Larson was asked if he would have done anything different if not going against a teammate: “Not at all.”
Bowman weighed in on it as well.
“I don’t know. I don’t know that there was really something Kyle could have done any differently even if he was trying to be dirty about anything,” Bowman said, per Pockrass. “He was super tight on my door, side-drafted me as hard as he could and he just ended up just getting tight in thee and four.
“I think the talk was a big wake up call. Obviously when Mr. H calls a meeting like that it gets your attention. And it’s always going to, anytime Mr. H talks he has your attention, but especially in a situation like that,” Bowman said. “But yeah, I mean I think Kyle and I have historically always raced each other really clean and I think this was no different.”
Bowman took the checkered flag, the first of his season, with Hendrick Motorsports now winning each of the last two races.
