Kyle Larson lost ground at Phoenix. With three races left in the Cup Series season, the No. 5 team watched the race unfold in a way Hendrick Motorsports did not plan for. Now the margin for Larson and crew chief Cliff Daniels has shrunk to almost nothing. One more bad day, and the title chase is over.
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“I think it’s great,” Daniels said as he spoke to the media, as reported by Jeff Gluck via X. “I think it’s no different than how it’s been all year long. I chuckle every time we try to crown a champion before the end of the year. Everybody tried to crown Reddick the champion early, and then they tried to crown Denny the champion. Then they tried to crown us.”
Now, Talladega is next on the schedule, and the championship battle is continuing to evolve.
“Like, there are still three races left,” he added. “There’s so many things that can change, fantastic teams in the top 10, really. And I know, is it six or seven that are more in contention now? That’s what you want. That’s a great title fight.”
After Talladega, Martinsville and Homestead-Miami await in the first week of November.
“They’re the best teams on pit road,” Daniels said. ” It’s going to be a tough fight from here on out. So we’ve got to do our part. We’ve got to obviously not have days like this. But we’re not going to get lost in just the disappointment of what today is. We’re going to keep fighting for the next three.”
While Kyle Larson and the No. 5 team must still deliver over the final three races, Daniels is refusing to let the changing title predictions distract them from their immediate task. However, the team’s latest outing at Phoenix exposed a more pressing concern: its struggle to find the speed needed to compete consistently at the front.
The 34-year-old’s struggles began early at Phoenix. After qualifying 22nd, he briefly climbed into the top five when the team opted for a two-tire stop, but he dropped back to 22nd by Stage 1’s end, then fell a lap down during Stage 2’s green-flag run, slipping to 28th.
The team used the stage-ending pit stop to make a substantial set of adjustments, hoping to find a setup that would improve the car’s handling and bring it back into contention. However, the changes failed to produce the breakthrough Daniels was looking for.
“We threw so many things at that car, man; I’m just waiting to see a sign of life. I don’t know that we made it a lot better. Don’t know why. Very unfortunate. I very much give Kyle a lot of credit for not cussing me out or quitting or all the things he could have done. He kept fighting too. Just an ugly day. Like I said, we’ll find the things that we need to put it behind us and go push hard for the next,” the No. 5 HMS crew chief said.
The Phoenix setback now leaves the No. 5 team with little time to dwell on what went wrong. With Talladega next on the schedule, Daniels and his crew must identify the lessons from the race and prepare for a different set of strategic challenges. The focus shifts from trying to find speed at Phoenix to executing the right decisions at a superspeedway, where fuel management and pit-road timing can prove decisive.
The upcoming race presents several challenges, particularly around fuel saving, green-flag pit cycles, and pit-road execution. When questioned about the preparation for the upcoming race at Talladega, Daniels detailed the areas the team has been working.
“Talladega is not going to be a ton different than the way speedway racing has been for us,” he added. “There’s always going to be the balance of what you have to do to save fuel. Yes. That’s a conversation. I know we all hate it, but you’ve got to do what you got to do to play the game and put yourself on the right side of the pit cycle under green when it happens.”
Interestingly, in his 23 starts at Talladega, Larson has never won the race. He did finish 2nd in April 2025, though, which has been his tied-best.
“And you know, there’s a lot of team dynamics to go into that too,” he added. “You’ve got to be clean on and off the road, in and out of the stall. When you’re taking a lot of fuel, you have the fuel can exchange. So there’s just a lot there. Plus, with the stage length, I call it a change from typical, like we had in the first race.”
For Larson, the next race offers an opportunity to put the Phoenix disappointment behind him and remain firmly involved in the championship fight.
This is not the first time the No. 5 team has had to overcome adversity. Kyle Larson and Daniels navigated difficult stretches during their 2021 and 2025 stretches That history provides context for Daniels’ confidence as the team looks to recover from its Phoenix setback.
“This is familiar territory for us,” he added. “Truth of the matter is we’re not even behind right now. We’re still up by just a little bit. So we have a great team. We have a lot of great people at Hendrick Motorsports. I very much believe God has us where he wants us to be, whatever the difficulty is right now. We’ve got to learn from it, be tough, be strong.”
With three races remaining, Cliff Daniels is confident that the team can respond to the setback. The immediate priority is to learn from Phoenix, execute better at Talladega, and allow Kyle Larson to remain in the championship fight until the end.