Kyle Larson (5) battles with Martin Truex Jr. (19) as they go into Turn 3 during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race, Saturday in Bristol, Tenn. (Wade Payne/AP Photo)

Just minutes after Kyle Larson crossed the finish line on the most dominating victory ever for a Hendrick Motorsports driver, his team rushed his 9-year-old son to the winning Chevrolet.

Owen Larson was placed on the window, half in the car, half out, as his dad drove a victory lap around Bristol Motor Speedway with his son holding the No. 1 finger in the air. He later joined his dad atop the car during Saturday night’s victory lane celebration.

“We had a little boys’ weekend here this weekend,” Larson said. “We’ll bring some hardware home tonight, too.”

Larson dominated the first elimination race of NASCAR’s 10-race playoff portion of the season by leading all but 38 of the 500 laps at the track in Bristol, Tennessee — the most laps led ever in a race by a Hendrick driver. It easily moved him into the second round of the playoffs, while former NASCAR champions Brad Keselowski and Martin Truex Jr., as well as Ty Gibbs and Harrison Burton, were eliminated from the 16-driver field.

“I’ve had a lot of good cars since I’ve come to Hendrick Motorsports, but man, that was just great execution all weekend by the team,” Larson said. “We dominate a lot of races but we might not close them all out, so it feels really good to close one out here.”

The first of three elimination races in the 10-race playoffs began with Denny Hamlin, Truex, Keselowski and Burton all below the cutline and facing elimination from the 16-driver field.

Hamlin, a three-time Daytona 500 winner with four career wins at Bristol, was never really worried and finished fourth.

“My aspiration was winning,” Hamlin said. “It’s as good as what we’ve been here the last couple times. It’s all offense from this point forward.”

Burton, who used a surprise win at Daytona last month to qualify for the playoffs in the final few weeks before he loses his seat with Wood Brothers Racing, was doubtful to recover enough to advance and finished 35th. Keselowski, the 2012 Cup champion, and 2017 champion Truex had a better shot at salvaging their playoffs but both came up empty.

Truex was penalized for speeding on pit road, taking him out of contention to advance, and Keselowski just didn’t have the pace. Joe Gibbs Racing had two of its four cars eliminated from the playoffs as Ty Gibbs was also penalized for speeding.

“That was just unfortunate there,” said Gibbs, who finished 15th. “Speeding penalty is on me. It’s my fault.”

Keselowski finished 26th and lamented the lack of speed in his RFK Racing Ford.

“Didn’t have the pace we wanted. We ran as hard as we could, there just wasn’t anything there,” Keselowski said. “Just gotta be faster.”

Truex is retiring from full-time racing at the end of the season.

“That kind of screws up your whole season,” Truex said of the speeding penalty. “It’s on me. It was my mistake. Just really sad for my guys. We had a really good car. I hate I screwed it up, would have at least tried to see what we could do.”

Larson, meanwhile, led 462 of 500 laps, the most since Cale Yarborough led 495 laps in 1977. Larson’s laps led is the most ever by a Hendrick driver and marked the fifth win of the season for the driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet.

It’s an impressive stat considering the Hendrick team has fielded cars for Hall of Famers Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Terry Labonte and Dale Earnhardt Jr., among others.

“That’s pretty awesome because there’s been some legendary Hall of Famers race for Hendrick Motorsports, and we’ve all grown up watching Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson dominate,” Larson said. “So pretty cool to get my name on another record at Hendrick Motorsports.”

Daniel Suarez, who finished four laps down in 31st, squeezed out the final spot into the second round of the playoffs by 11 points over Gibbs.

Also advancing were Chase Elliott, who finished second, Christopher Bell, who finished fifth, regular-season champion Tyler Reddick, Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, Chase Briscoe, William Byron, Austin Cindric and Alex Bowman.

Hendrick’s entire four-car Chevrolet lineup advanced, as did all three Ford drivers from Team Penske. But Toyota lost a pair of JGR entries, and Ford lost two cars in Keselowski and Burton.

Lando Norris cruises to victory

at Singapore Grand Prix

SINGAPORE — Lando Norris survived a couple of brushes with barriers as he won the Singapore Grand Prix with ease and cut into Max Verstappen’s Formula 1 standings lead Sunday.

Norris started on pole position ahead of Verstappen and steadily built a large lead for his third career win. All have come this year.

From now on, though, the title is no longer entirely in Norris’ hands. Even if he wins every remaining race, second place in each would be enough for Verstappen to retain the title.

Norris started on pole position for the sixth time in his career and, for a driver with a tendency to lose places off the grid this season, had an unusually drama-free start. It was the first time Norris has won from pole without losing a place on the first lap.

There were two brief moments of jeopardy when the McLaren driver first locked his brakes and touched the barriers, prompting concern he’d damaged the front wing, and later when a rear tire brushed another but Norris seemed largely unaffected as he cruised to the win.

“It was an amazing race. A few too many close calls,” Norris said. “It’s not that you’re necessarily over-pushing. Sometimes it can be that you’re just chilling too much. Maybe it’s a bit of both. I don’t know what it is, but it’s tricky.”

With such a big lead, staying focused was one of Norris’ challenges. Races in Singapore have a habit of turning on strategy calls, or if a crash brings out the safety car and brings the cars back together. Norris had to stay alert but there was no safety car — a first in Singapore.

Verstappen came in second for Red Bull after a race that was largely uneventful after he held off Lewis Hamilton into the first corner at the start.

Oscar Piastri, the winner for McLaren in Azerbaijan last week, moved up from fifth on the grid to finish third after passing Mercedes’ Hamilton and later George Russell for the final podium place.

Verstappen seemed relaxed Sunday, holding onto second and minimizing the damage to his lead, which was trimmed from 59 to 52 points.

“I think on a weekend where we knew that we were going to struggle, to be P2 is a good achievement. Of course we’re not happy with second,” Verstappen said. “Now we just have to try and improve more and more and that’s what we’ll try to do.”

Six rounds of the championship remain, starting with the United States Grand Prix next month, and three of those offer extra points with sprint races.

If Norris earns maximum points in every one of those nine events, including the bonus point for fastest lap, and Verstappen finishes second in each, then Norris would cut the gap by only 51 points — finishing one behind Verstappen, who hasn’t won since June.

That state of play is partly thanks to Daniel Ricciardo, whose place in F1 with Red Bull’s second team RB could be under threat. The Australian made a small but potentially vital intervention in the championship fight Sunday.

Ricciardo stopped for fresh tires late on and set the fastest lap of the race on his way to finishing 18th. That deprived Norris of the extra point for fastest lap that he seemed set to secure.

“Thank you, Daniel,” Verstappen said over the radio.

Russell was fourth, ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, while seven-time champion Hamilton had to settle for sixth after Mercedes’ strategy left him on older tires than his rivals at the end of the race.

Carlos Sainz Jr. was seventh for Ferrari after crashing in qualifying, with Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin eighth and Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg ninth.

Tenth place was all Sergio Perez could manage in a season where he has frequently struggled to match the pace of his Red Bull teammate Verstappen.