Grant Enfinger had already locked himself into the Championship 4 via a win in the Round of 8, but he decided to go out and do it again for good measure. Two weeks after his Talladega win, he captured the checkered flag at Homestead as well after a masterful fuel-save.

“I felt I saved at least 20% more than I did in the first run, but Jeff (Stankiewicz, crew chief) was on me pretty hard obviously … Hard to beat these two weeks,” said Enfinger, who drives the No. 9 CR7 Motorsports Chevrolet. 

It’s Enfinger’s second consecutive win in this round alone (and his total for the season), heading to Phoenix in two weeks with all of the momentum. He’s getting hot at the right time as he tries to rectify last year’s tough championship loss.

“It’s definitely good (to be me right now),” smiled Enfinger. “We’ve had potential all year and there’s been some times I didn’t execute and there’s been some times we just had bad luck. But maybe this is the time we got our momentum.”

Fuel-save mastery and misery

This is Enfinger’s 12th career NASCAR Truck Series win. His status as a veteran driver was on full display as he maintained his advantage while taking every opportunity he could lift out of the throttle and draft with other trucks, saving fuel.

While several trucks ran out in the final moments of the race, the veteran Enfinger was not among them. Running second with two laps to go, Layne Riggs dropped to the apron as he was out of fuel. Playoff driver Nick Sanchez then moved into second, only to run out as well on the final lap. Riggs finished 22nd and Sanchez 13th.

Enfinger actually crossed the line over 17 seconds clear of the closest competition and still had enough fuel to do burnouts! It was a statement victory that ended with Ty Majeski a distant second, Connor Mosack third, Corey Heim fourth, and Tyler Ankrum fifth. Stewart Friesen, Daniel Dye, Rajah Caruth, Christian Eckes, and Taylor Gray rounded out the top-ten.

Enfinger’s comeback and the final run to the finish

It was not all smooth sailing for Enfinger, though. Contact on a mid-race restart with Christian Eckes forced him to make an unscheduled pit stop and put him behind for a bit. When the final restart occurred with 83 laps to go, he was back in 20th but was also one of a handful of drivers who had taken their final set of tires.

They all sliced through the field and luckily for them, the caution flag never flew again. With about 35 laps to go, most of the leaders not on Enfinger’s strategy came in under green for their final set of tires.

With 25 laps to go, a charging Enfinger moved into the second position. At that point, Heim was around 30 seconds back. It didn’t take Enfinger long to run down Riggs, passing him for the lead with an outside with 22 laps remaining.

Dawson Sutton and Tanner Gray ran long, saving their final set of tires while hoping for a lucky caution. It never cam and both had to pit under green. With ten laps left, Heim had stalled out and was no longer gaining large chunks of time on the race leaders.

It was game over as Enfinger managed to save enough fuel while his closest rivals fell to the wayside.

Update on playoff standings and Mills’ condition

Looking at the points standings ahead of the elimination race at Martinsville, Heim is looking very secure at +49 points above the cut-line. Christian Eckes sits at +38 and Ty Majeski is at +22. Sitting within the elimination zone are Rajah Caruth (-22 points), Taylor Gray (-24 points), Tyler Ankrum (-41 points), and Sanchez (-43 points).

During the middle of the race, there was a scary incident where Connor Jones lost his cool and punted Matt Mills into the outside wall. He quickly climbed from the truck as fire erupted while NASCAR penalized Jones two laps for reckless driving. Mills has since been transported to a local hospital for further evaluation.

Continue reading with advertising …

… or with a subscription

Visit motorsport.com as usual with advertising and tracking. You can revoke your consent at any time via the data protection page.¹

Use motorsport.com without any advertising banners, personalized tracking and commercials for a small fee.

Accept and continue

More information about advertising and tracking in our Data protection notice, the List of our partners and in Data protection information center.

Already a subscriber?

Log in here

The FIA is to revise the wording of its controversial racing guidelines after a meeting with the Formula 1 drivers in Mexico in the wake of Max Verstappen’s tactics against Lando Norris at Austin.

The governing body is understood to have accepted that changes to the guidelines were required to close a loophole Verstappen has been exploiting regarding strong defending when under attack from another car, with other instances of questionable tactics also being targeted.

Motorsport.com understands it will present its suggested revisions back to the drivers for approval at another meeting with them in Qatar next month and because these are guidelines they can be used by the stewards immediately rather than requiring sign-off by other FIA bodies.

There could be a potential issue in that Grand Prix Drivers’ Association signs off on F1’s racing guidelines and the drivers are not united on the incidents that occurred last weekend.

Sauber driver Valtteri Bottas said on Thursday in Mexico that “some drivers are pushing the limits of the regulations more and almost like kind of taking the piss out of it”.

The usual post-FP2 drivers’ meeting for the Mexico event ran for an unusually long time, as, Motorsport.com understands, the FIA briefing and explanation of Norris’s penalty for overtaking Verstappen off the track late in their Austin battle was followed by a GPDA meeting.

The stewards of the Mexico meeting attended along with the team sporting managers as usual, along with the sporting representative of Formula One Management.

Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38, battles with Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

Advertisement

During the meeting, the drivers outlined their positions on what Verstappen has been doing, with some siding strongly with Norris’s point of view – expressed post-race in Austin and again on the Mexico media day that he was “no longer the attacking car, [Verstappen] was” – while others felt Verstappen’s tactics were hard but fair within the rules as they are currently written.

However, although getting complete driver unanimity is always going to be a tough ask, Motorsport.com understands there is enough support at this stage for the guidelines changes to be accepted before the end of the current campaign and following the Qatar meeting.

In a statement provided to media, the FIA said of the meeting, “there was a general commitment to continue to update the driving standards guidelines”.

“Bearing in mind the drivers requested the drivers’ racing guidelines and agreed to their introduction along with the GPDA,” the statement added, “each time they are updated it is consultation with the drivers.

“It is generally accepted that they should continue to evolve, not because of isolated incidents such as Austin, but driven by the desire to bring consistency to determinations and decisions from the stewards.”

The last significant evolution of the guidelines – first introduced at the drivers’ request in 2022 – is understood to have occurred after the 2023 Singapore GP and in the Mexico meeting while there were specific disagreements the overall tone of the meeting was collaborative.

Continue reading with advertising …

… or with a subscription

Visit motorsport.com as usual with advertising and tracking. You can revoke your consent at any time via the data protection page.¹

Use motorsport.com without any advertising banners, personalized tracking and commercials for a small fee.

Accept and continue

More information about advertising and tracking in our Data protection notice, the List of our partners and in Data protection information center.

Already a subscriber?

Log in here

Last weekend, Tyler Reddick was rolling through the infield crash in a wild crash at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Just six days later, he’s shown his determination to drag himself out of the elimination zone by winning pole position at Homestead.

Reddick’s pole lap of 32.248s was more than enough to secure the top spot, earning his third pole of the year and the ninth of his Cup career. Joining him on the front row is Kyle Larson, who was 0.077s adrift of the pole.

Christopher Bell qualified third and Denny Hamlin fourth with Joe Gibbs Racing drivers locking out the second row. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who earned his first win of the year at Talladega earlier this month, was the highest-qualifying non-playoff driver in fifth.

Martin Truex Jr. was sixth, Chase Elliott seventh, Bubba Wallace eighth, Daniel Hemric ninth, and Justin Haley tenth.

There were no incidents during either round of qualifying and all drivers set a time.

Round 1

Reddick led the Group A drivers in the early-morning qualifying session with a 32.126s lap. Four of the five drivers who advanced were Toyota drivers with the 23XI duo of Reddick and Wallace advancing along with JGR drivers Hamlin and Truex.

Haley was the only Chevrolet driver to advance, representing Spire Motorsports and beating Josh Berry for the final spot by only 0.008s.

Two playoff drivers failed to advance and they were both Team Penske champions. Joey Logano, who won last week and is already locked into the Championship 4, was the lowest-qualifying playoff driver and was 13th in Group A (26th overall).

His teammate Ryan Blaney, who is in a far more precarious points position as he tries to earn back-to-back titles, will start 20th.

In Group B, a Toyota again topped the charts with Bell lapping the track with a 32.268s lap. In a contrast to Group A, Bell was the only Toyota to move on while the remaining four spots were all held by Chevrolets. Stenhouse, Larson, Elliott and a surprise in Hemric all moved forward. The Kaulig Racing driver was the last driver to advance, beating Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman by 0.039s.

William Byron was far behind his Hendrick teammates with the 2024 Daytona 500 winner qualifying 25th.

Antonelli wowed with his immediate pace on his grand prix weekend debut in Monza, but pushed beyond the limits at the Parabolica and crashed out after five laps.

“It was definitely much better than Monza,” Antonelli said. “I drove much calmer today, I didn’t want to take any risks. I just wanted to do a clean session, just to get some laps, understand the car a bit more and understand the tyres.

“I think overall it was pretty decent. Of course, I could feel I wasn’t on the limit, but just because it was my choice. I just wanted to get a clean session overall. I was able to pick up the pace quite quickly. It was good like this.”

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes F1 W15

Photo by: Dom Romney / Motorsport Images

Advertisement

Antonelli picked up some floor damage coming from a metal piece of debris, which forced Mercedes to repair the damage before Hamilton returned to the car for Friday afternoon’s FP2. 

“To be honest, I didn’t really see it,” Antonelli commented. “It was a shame because I got quite a bit of floor damage from it. It was quite big damage, so of course it wasn’t ideal. But still, I managed to get a few laps in the bag.”

In FP2 Russell suffered a heavy crash after his car bottomed out over the kerbs in the Esses, which sent his W15 into a dramatic spin into the barriers and prompted a much bigger repair job for the Mercedes team.

“I don’t really know what happened, the car just started bouncing on the ground, and before I had a chance to even catch it, the car was already spinning,” Russell explained after the session.

“A lot of work for the guys tonight again, seems like it’s one thing after another at the moment, but it’s frustrating as in FP1 we were really strong, really fast. Obviously we’ve missed out on laps, FP3 is going to be important, just hope we can get the car fixed.”