Kyle Busch on Atlanta top-10: ‘We needed to win’

HAMPTON, Ga. — Kyle Busch continued his hot streak with a spoiler seventh-place finish Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway but that didn’t satisfy him.

Last time at Atlanta, Busch fell two spots, and 0.007 seconds, shy of a win in a three-wide photo finish. Instead, Danlel Suarez went to victory lane and made the playoffs while Ryan Blaney finished second.

Busch, at one point late Sunday, looked to be in the driver’s seat for the win. 

Starting 15th, Busch was out of the mix for much of the day, not getting any stage points. In the final stage, things changed as he found himself up inside the top three.

The No. 8 car was on the same fuel strategy as most of the cars around him, pushing it to the very edge of the fuel window. 

Amid a few late-race restarts, his hopes of winning dwindled. But, he still salvaged a Top-10 finish.

While Busch will be excluded from the dramatics of the playoffs, he still has plenty to race for in the final nine races. He’s arguably the hottest driver in the NASCAR Cup Series at the moment, finishing inside the Top-10 in the last four races. 

When asked if he was satisfied with his result Sunday, Busch was blunt.

“No, we needed to win. We started pretty far off with the No. 8 Global Industrial Camaro, but we really worked on it. The guys made some good adjustments and got it to where it was driving really good. Definitely the second-half of the race and the final stage, I felt really positive about it. But then we had to go into fuel-save mode, so we weren’t really able to kind of stretch our legs there,” Busch said. “Felt as good, or better, than the No. 99 (Daniel Suarez), so I was just hopeful that we could keep that track position. Just lost a little bit too much there on that second-to-last restart.”

Suarez finished second – where Busch finished the two weeks before Atlanta. Busch is still winless in the NASCAR Cup Series this year and has just nine races left to extend his historic streak of winning seasons to 20.

The 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs charges on to the Go Bowling at the Glen at Watkins Glen International Speedway. That is to go green Sunday, Sept. 15, at 3 p.m. ET. 

William Byron and Kyle Larson are the two most recent winners at Watkins Glen. The last time a non-Hendrick Motorsports driver won at The Glen was Martin Truex Jr. in 2017.