Kyle Larson's No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports pit crew got him out first among the Championship 4 contenders on the final pit stop, but it wasn't quite enough to hold off Ryan Blaney in the closing stretch.
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00:00 >> And, Rick, they had an absolutely perfect pit stop there at the end, both driver and
00:05 crew.
00:06 Walk me through the restart and the final laps.
00:07 What was missing there that Blaney had and you guys didn't?
00:10 >> Yeah, his car was really fast.
00:13 Really the last few months.
00:14 And yeah, especially here today.
00:17 So our pit crew and pit road just really kept us in the game.
00:20 We weren't the greatest on the track.
00:23 But I was just hoping for pit stops.
00:26 I knew the way our team executed our lights and the way our pit crew can execute a fast
00:33 pit stop.
00:34 I knew that was going to be our only shot, really, to win.
00:37 They did everything in their power to give us the winning job done there.
00:43 So a huge thank you to them.
00:46 I needed to come out the leader on that restart.
00:50 Ross got a really good start from the second row.
00:52 And I was hoping I could get clear of Denny and get to lead and have Ross kind of protect
00:57 for me behind me.
00:58 I'm not sure if it would have made a difference, really.
01:00 I was just not as good as a few guys.
01:04 Especially Blaney and Ross, probably.
01:06 So it would have been difficult.
01:07 But my team did a really good job all season.
01:10 So I'm extremely proud of them.
01:11 We had an up and down year.
01:13 We finally put together two solid weeks in a row.
01:15 So I don't know if we've done that all year.
01:17 But yeah.
01:18 Just a huge thank you to hendrickcars.com, team Chevy, junior almond bar, everybody back
01:25 at Hendrick motorsports, the engine shop, everyone.
01:29 So we'll come back next year and try to be stronger.
01:32 >> Blaney made a point in his interview to talk about how respectfully you and the other
01:35 two contenders raced.
01:37 How important was it not to do anything egregious in this race?
01:42 >> I tried to take as much as I could in one and two just to see if I could do anything.
01:47 He was a lot faster.
01:49 He was behind me a number of times throughout the race.
01:52 Never touched me.
01:53 So I would say for me and my respect level, it started with him.
01:56 He raced with a lot of respect early on in the race.
01:59 He always has, too.
02:00 So it was fun watching, you know, Ryan and William and bell kind of when he was out there,
02:06 us all racing hard.
02:07 So yeah, just a lot of fun there.
02:10 And congrats to Ryan.
02:11 He's a deserving champion.
02:12 Him and his team have done an amazing job.
02:15 It's been fun to kind of come up through the ranks with him.
02:19 And now you see him be a champion.
02:22 So congrats to team penske and their whole team.
02:25 We'll try to beat them next year.
02:27 >> Kyle Larson comes home second in the championship standings.