Cliff Daniels breaks down No. 5 team, Kyle Larson’s winning strategy at caution-riddled Sonoma

A caution-filled first two stages at Sonoma this past Sunday threatened to blow up several teams’ strategies, including that of the No. 5 team and Kyle Larson.

In total, seven caution flags flied before the halfway point, more yellow flags than in the previous two races at Sonoma combined. Despite the unforeseen circumstances, Larson’s team stuck to the original plan and committed to it, as explained in detail by crew chief Cliff Daniels on Kevin Harvick’s “Happy Hour” podcast this week.

“So, the interesting thing that I see in the rearview mirror is that we spent a lot of time last week preparing for different scenarios of two versus three stops and those within themselves that wasn’t contingent on cautions,” Daniels said. “In the Next Gen era at road courses, you just don’t see that many cautions. So, in a case like this, is it gonna be more offensive or defensive to be two or three stops? And then even in that, there’s a couple sub-points to those. The unexpected factor for the whole field was the cautions. We had prepared so well looking at the two versus three stop and all of those things. We kind of identified that there won’t be a time in the race where you’re gonna have the right answer. You have to commit to the path that you’re on.

“And if you decide early that you’re gonna be a two-stop car and then you punt and go three-stop, you’re just sacrificing track position and what the two-stop could have resulted and vice versa. … The key principle we identified on, whatever path you’re on, stay on that path, own it. And that’s what we ended up having to do once we stayed out through all the cautions. Other guys flipped the strategy on us where they were gonna net out with the track position. We had to figure out how to get back on offense.”

The plan worked. Larson made his final pit stop on Lap 81 and would quickly cut through the field and reach the leaders — Chris Buescher and Martin Truex Jr. — with less than 10 laps remaining in the race. On 13-lap fresher tires, Larson made the pass on both of them and held on to take his third checkered flag of the season.

Daniels revealed he didn’t think they were capable of winning after that final pit stop. But then, Larson went to work in ensuring that they did.

Kyle Larson makes easy work of field at Sonoma in final stage

“To be dead honest, I was convinced we were gonna finish third,” Daniels said. “When the 17 and the 19 pitted, I believe we were 13 second behind them. They pitted early in the final fuel window. So, as I’m thinking through this OK, if we pivot from the path that we’re on and we pit with them, we’re gonna come out 13 seconds behind them on the same tires. No chance. And really would’ve cycled through eighth and on the same tires as everyone ahead of us. I just don’t know that we pass and get up through there. So, once they pit ahead of us, you have the clean air advantage, Kyle was laying down some laps. OK, alright, so we’re not out of this yet.

“And we weren’t hemorrhaging as much time as we thought we would have at the time. So, OK, let’s keep going. We knew kind of the mathematical falloff numbers to hit to split the final stage and getting closer to that was going to give us the best of both ends of our stint lengths. And once we kept getting closer to that, my concern was forting with the caution. Caution comes out and you haven’t pitted, you’re toast. So, you’re kind of weighing the risk versus the reward of staying true to the path versus a caution coming out.

“Once we pitted, I knew there was a lot of disparity from our laps on tires to theirs. Like, I can definitely see third and getting to them. We all know it’s gonna be tough to pass a Next Gen car at a road course. But Kyle — he was on it.”

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