​There were plenty of ways for a championship contender’s afternoon to unravel Sunday at World Wide Technology Raceway.Hendrick Motorsports watched one happen to Chase Elliott. It watched plenty more happen around him.Ryan Blaney lost his brakes and went to the garage. Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace were caught in a massive late wreck. Chase Briscoe’s strong run disappeared when Elliott’s own brake problem sent the No. 9 sliding into him.By the time the smoke cleared, however, three Hendrick Chevrolets were still sitting exactly where they needed to be.Kyle Larson won.Alex Bowman finished second.William Byron came home fourth.It gave Hendrick three of the top four finishing positions on a punishing afternoon at Gateway, but the biggest development came from the driver standing in Victory Lane.Larson hadn’t won a NASCAR Cup Series race since Kansas in the spring of 2025. More than a year later, the drought is finally over.And with it came a dramatic change to the Chase.Larson arrived at Gateway seventh in the standings. He leaves second.Kyle Larson Finally Gets the Win That Kept Getting AwayThe length of Larson’s winless streak was unusual enough.The way it kept growing made it even more frustrating.Larson had hardly disappeared from the front of Cup races since his last victory at Kansas. He had led laps, put himself in contention and repeatedly shown enough speed to win. The finishes simply weren’t turning into victories.Darlington offered the latest example.Larson led a race-high 99 laps in the Chase opener and looked capable of ending the drought there. Hendrick ultimately kept him on track during the late tire cycle, a gamble that briefly put him in control before the cars on fresher tires worked their way past. He finished fifth.Seven days later, Larson didn’t let another one get away.That alone would have made Gateway significant. What it did for his championship position made the afternoon substantially bigger.Larson began the second race of the Chase seventh in points. When it ended, only one driver remained ahead of him.It’s an enormous early swing in a format that rewards exactly what Larson and the No. 5 team produced Sunday: winning races, running at the front and collecting points while other contenders stumble.The defending Cup Series champion had already shown he had the speed to make another title run.At Gateway, he finally had another trophy to go with it.Alex Bowman and William Byron Turn Larson’s Win Into a Hendrick RoutThe final results showed this was much more than one Hendrick car hitting on everything.Bowman made sure of that.He followed Larson across the finish line in second, giving Hendrick the top two positions at Gateway. Byron’s fourth-place finish put another Chevrolet inside the top five and, perhaps more importantly for the No. 24 team, delivered exactly the kind of rebound it needed.Byron’s Chase began about as badly as possible at Darlington. Mechanical trouble left him 37