Kyle Larson admitted that he made a mistake which cost Christopher Bell, who was fighting for a win, a number of spots.
As Martin Truex Jr. was leading Bell and Larson on lap 55 of the race at Watkins Glen International, Larson got inside of Bell’s car making it to turn. Bell lost positions in the track to 10th position. He could only recover as much as 7th while Larson won the race.
Larson took the blame for his mistake which cost Bell a chance to win the race.
“I definitely made a mistake getting into him,” Larson said. “He would pull me off of (Turn) 7 every time and that time I maintained. I was out-braking him the other laps. I thought I could out-brake him and at least get all the way to his inside. I was only able to get to kind of his nose and his numbers, maybe not that far, but it was close.
“At that point I’m already committed and on the verge on wheel-hopping, locking the fronts up. I was just hoping he would leave enough room. I just needed to be a few feet further up and I think I would have had position on him, but I wasn’t able to get there. He had to turn the corner, and I was as low as I could get. We made contact.
“It was definitely my fault. Not intentional, obviously. I made a mistake.”
“I made too many mistakes to get the win” – Chase Elliott
Bell said that he was looking to go ahead of Truex when Larson did the move. He knew that he was as good as Larson, if not better, in the race and this was an opportunity gone by to add to his win this season.
“It’s just so frustrating because I was a lot faster than (Truex), but I was waiting for the right time to make a run on him to pass him,” Bell told NBC Sports. “He’s my teammate. I attempted several times and never quite got the momentum that I needed, so I was waiting for the right opportunity to pass him.
“At that point, (Larson) really couldn’t make a run on me either. If I could have forced the issue on my teammate and got away, I think I would have driven away.
“(Larson) didn’t have a run on me coming off of (Turn) 7 whenever he charged Turn 1. I’m focused on trying to set up (Truex) and (Larson) is dive-bombing me from whatever it was, three car lengths back at the flagstand.
“Just extremely frustrating that I was equal to him – probably better than him – and he won the race. We had an opportunity taken away from us.”