In less than two years, Kyle Larson made rivals out of two non-NASCAR drivers. Remember the Hendrick Motorsports driver’s cocky comments after his Knoxville victory in 2024? He threw a direct challenge to 4-time Formula One World Champion Max Verstappen, about holding the ‘World’s Best Driver’ status. In May 2025, Larson ended up ticking off an IndyCar driver. Even fans, usually dominated by Larson-heads, could not forgive him for it.

Kyle Larson attempted the ‘Double’ for a second time in 2025. The mental, physical, and logistical grind spanning two racetracks in two different districts had hardly changed. It ended up giving him frustration even before chaos descended, leading to raised eyebrows in the IndyCar circuit.

Kyle Larson leaves rival unhappy

The HMS ‘golden boy’ may have a penchant for forgetting errors and moving on. However, that penchant was stretched to the limit during the Memorial Day Weekend. Prior to the Indy 500 disaster, Kyle Larson crashed his No. 17 Arrow-McLaren car twice, once in an April Open Test and during practice a few weeks back. Although Larson’s confidence was undeterred, rain delayed the start of the prestigious IndyCar race. When it finally started, Larson initially avoided trouble. But while running 18th on a mid-race restart, he appeared to downshift on the run into Turn 2, upsetting the car. Larson lost control, spun across the track, and collected two cars. As it turned out, this fallout had a hint of karma in it.

When the 33-car IndyCar grid was just on the pace laps of the Indy 500, chaos broke out. Scott McLaughlin, the only Team Penske driver spared from the latest scandal, lost control. His No. 3 Chevrolet came out from under him, crashing into the inside wall on the frontstretch, destroying the car. As it turned out, Kyle Larson passed McLaughlin while pacing the circuit, and what happened next didn’t please the Penske man.

When the HMS driver saw what happened, he slipped out expletives at McLaughlin’s misery: “Someone just crashed. F—ing idiot,” and gave him what looked like a sarcastic thumbs up as he passed by. In response to this radio talk, McLaughlin made sure to deliver a jab of his own on X. He wrote with a pointed take at the Larson-Verstappen debate: “Guess im out of the best driver in the world talks. 🤷‍♂️” To add salt to his wounds, not only did Kyle Larson fumble his Indy 500 attempt, but his team’s home ground Charlotte race also went awry.

From a damaged toe link to getting involved in a lap 245 ‘Big One’, Larson had multiple reasons to feel at rock bottom after Sunday. He reflected on the effort he put in to this double attempt and when asked if he would go at it again, his response was damning. Larson told NASCAR insider Dustin Long after his DNF at Charlotte, “I don’t know. It’s so fresh right now, I don’t really have a good answer for you. The double is just a tough undertaking. The window of time is too tight. Even if I didn’t wreck, I don’t think I would have made it here on time and probably would have had to end that race short anyway. So I don’t really think it’s worth it. But I would love to run the Indy 500 again. Just doing the double, I think, is just logistically too tough.”

The same dejected emotions plagued his IndyCar rival, Scott McLaughlin. After losing his chances on the pace laps, he was seen sitting with his head in his hands. “I’d never wish this feeling on my worst enemy,” he wrote. McLaughlin also felt horrible about disappointing his team. He said, “I’m just really upset for my team. They built me a fantastic car again. I’m really sorry to my sponsors, my fans, my family…By far the worst moment of my life.”

Although both drivers visited similarly disastrous fates, fans defended one of them. After the radio talk, you can probably guess who that is.

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Fans call out the ‘golden boy’s comments

Well, Kyle Larson has issued notorious radio comments in the past. In 2020, he was suspended from Chip Ganassi Racing for insensitive slurs on iRacing. As his ‘Double’ frustrations caught up to him and Larson lost control of his tongue yet again, fans did not like it. One fan took a jab at Larson’s shattered Indy 500 chances: “This tweet aged faster than milk.” After dissing Scott McLaughlin during the pace laps, Larson faced the same fate.

On lap 92, his No. 17 car spun out and crashed, effectively laying to rest his 1100-mile dream. So somebody wrote, “He then proceeds to do the exact same thing, karma hurts 🤷‍♂.” His string of misfortunes hardly ended there. Larson started from 2nd place at Charlotte and even led for 30-odd laps until he brought out the very first caution. So one fan wrote, “Humble pie was served cold for this.”

Dissing Scott McLaughlin did not sit well with core IndyCar fans. The three-time Australian V8 Supercars champion won the 2024 Indy 500 pole and ranks third on Team Penske’s all-time wins list. He is also the 2021 NTT INDYCAR SERIES and Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year. In 2025, he has clinched 4 top tens and 3 top fives. So one fan was furious at Kyle Larson’s comments: “Make sure to give him the bird too mate!!! 🦅” What is more? McLaughlin’s ‘prowess’ was visible even though he could not start the Indy 500, as one fan sarcastically pointed out, “He wrecked twice yesterday while you passed 3 cars without even making a lap. I know who my goat is 🔥”

Clearly, Kyle Larson did not whip up a load of support for his IndyCar misadventure. Let us hope that things settle down between him and his new rival, and Larson improves his mistakes.