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Kyle Larson is the defending NASCAR Cup Series champion. He’s already had a win and is into the 2022 playoffs. The rest of his Hendrick Motorsports teammates are also postseason bound, with each driver also clinching victory for just a third of the season.
This week Larson appeared on NASCAR Racing Center, where he discussed his season, the performance of the organization as a whole, and what he hopes for the future. He also revealed some interesting information about the organization that should be very concerning to the other teams in the garage. And the numbers back it up.
Kyle Larson reveals intriguing information about Hendrick Motorsports
Kyle Larson’s appearance in NASCAR Racing Center this week consisted of the expected questions, including what he thought about William Byron’s incident with Joey Logano in Darlington (more on that later). However, when asked by David Ragan about the dynamic of how the HMS teams work together, Larson provided some interesting information that doesn’t bode well for Cup Series competition the rest of 2022.
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“I only come from one team with myself and one other teammate before, so being in the four-car Hendrick Motorsports team has been a bit unique to what I was used to before, but I feel like we’re all young. we all get along, we all work really hard and we really want to see each other succeed and win if we can’t win,” Larson said.
“I’m really happy for any of my teammates who get a win. William has been doing a great job. All of us have been doing a great job. To pursue. Alex. We all got a win. All the mechanics and team managers work very well together. You know, I’ve only been here a little over a year, but from what I understand this is the closest these teams have ever worked together and I think it definitely pays off in the results we get every weekend. So we have to keep working like we’re together and I think we should be able to win a few more championships in the future as an organization.”
The numbers back it up
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With all the talk this year about the Next Gen car leveling the playing field, apparently Hendrick Motorsports didn’t get the memo. The team that won the championship last year with Larson has shown no signs of a competitive drop in the transition to the new car.
A third of last season and the organization had posted 27 top-10 finishes and three wins. This year, HMS has 26 top 10 finishes and five wins. And it could be at least one more for Byron last week at Darlington before Logano sent him into the wall. Those numbers show, as Larson suggested, an organization that works together cohesively.
What’s interesting about Larson’s individual numbers this season is that they could be considerably better. He had six top-10 finishes, up from seven last year, and a win in the second race of the season at Fontana. Mixed in the first 12 races are a staggering four DNFs. He had two all last year.
Larson talks about Byron’s fierce response at Darlington
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At the end of his racing center interview, host Shannon Spake admitted she couldn’t let Larson get away without asking about last weekend’s race at Darlington and what happened between his teammate and Logano. Except she didn’t want to talk about the incident itself, but about Byron’s heated post-race reaction. Larson admitted that she even caught him off guard.
“I was like, man, it was great to see William show some emotion there. He is the nicest guy in the sport that I know,” Larson said. “So to see him so excited was great.”
The entire organization seems excited in 2022 and the collective performance so far reflects that. It could herald things to come and that could mean a third straight title for what is already the winningest organization in Cup Series history.
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