Sunday’s YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway had one of the most dramatic finishes. Kyle Larson went from 11th place to the Victory Lane on the final lap of overtime with a photo-finish 0.041 seconds over his Hendrick teammate William Byron and two others. He now holds a 73-point advantage over his closest challenger and regular season champ, Denny Hamlin, exponentially expanding his championship lead with only two races remaining. But as dramatic as this Talladega-trademark win was, more attention is going towards how Larson won in the first place. 

After Larson himself thanked “all my Chevy GM partners for working with me all day,” social media has been blowing with theories on how the No. 5 driver was handed the win by the Chevrolet drivers. But if you ask the Hendrick Motorsports President, Jeff Andrews, he didn’t only laugh off such claims, but also reminded the correct Chevy timeline far beyond Sunday.

“Haha, I did not get that memo,” Andrews said in conversation with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Interviews‘ host. “There’s been some incredible stuff on social media this week, and we just try to ignore all that stuff and go about doing our business,” clarified Andrews, “But kudos to everyone at the Chevrolet camp.

“Obviously not the best start to the season for the Chevrolet, and the way all the teams have worked together, and the heat partner teams have worked together to get the OEM and GM and Chevrolet back in Victory Lane and in contention for the championship, where they deserve to be, so hats off to Eric Warren and Tony Lunders and everybody at the GM Tech Center there.

“And the way they’ve gathered around us. We’re proud to be obviously partners of Chevrolet ever since we’ve been racing, for 42 years now. And so looking forward to doing our best to bring them another championship at the end of 2026.”

Larson’s finish drew criticism after he thanked Chevy for their “work”

On Sunday, Larson bagged his first Talladega win with an unprecedented top-six finish for Chevrolet. The No. 5 driver executed a sensational last-lap charge by maneuvering his No. 5 Chevy low to pass seven cars in the final quarter-mile of Talladega’s famed 2.66-mile high banks. One of those was his teammate, William Byron.

However, fans and critics argued that the Hendrick Motorsports driver had moved below the yellow line in the closing laps, and that the Chevrolet drivers bailed out on the throttle and slammed on the brakes on the final lap to let the five win.

NASCAR ruled out foul play, race manipulation, and yellow-line violation for Larson. But critics believe that unless teammates like William Byron and other fellow Chevrolet drivers, Ross Chastain, and more had not let him hold onto his championship lead and extend his win, he could have missed out on his win.

“Really gotta thank all my Chevy GM partners for working with me all day. I really felt it and definitely the best speedway race I’ve ever had because of it, so thanks to all of them.”

While the host of SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Interviews was full of praise for Byron as the ultimate wingman a driver could ask for, Hendrick Motorsports president Jeff Andrews also expressed his appreciation for the No. 24 driver’s efforts to support his HMS teammate.

Andrews clears Byron’s name as the latter reveals his thoughts seconds before the finish

“From a team standpoint, those are the kind of guys that you want as teammates, and the kind of guys you want pushing you up through the field, and staying with you,” Andrews said. “But when it comes down to the win, and we don’t have team orders here at Hendrick Motorsports, you know. And good for that team, and William, and Rudy have gotten themselves in the position to be you know potential candidates to win that race.

“And the way it unfolded there, when Kyle got by him right at the end, and certainly a second-place finish on that day, they were proud to do their part to help the five however they could, but if it had come down to the two of them, I can promise you they were both going to be racing for a win there at the start-finish line.”

The ultimate wingman, William Byron, said:

“I felt like the energy got broken up off 2, and I was like, ‘Man, I’ve got a shot here.’ Once I got clear going into 3, it was a good job keeping the momentum going. Man, second sucks, but it’s good that Kyle won. We worked really well together all day, and if I couldn’t win, I wanted him to win.”

“Just proud of the fight.”

While Talladega concluded just as the team and crew imagined, despite the controversy, it will come down to how Hendrick Motorsports and the No. 5 crew approach the Martinsville weekend, with the team being the most successful at the short track in NASCAR history with 32 wins.