It is not a good week to be a fan of Hendrick Motorsports. Last weekend, Chase Elliott wanted to make a statement at the 2.5-mile Pocono Raceway track. He led for 38 laps and clinched a remarkable 4th-place finish in the Xfinity Series race, then followed it up with another top five in Cup. However, that statement fell apart after his team landed a heavy penalty for illegal adjustments. Now, that impact has spread to another one of Rick Hendrick’s stars.

Kyle Larson currently stands in 2nd position in the Cup Series championship standings. With three wins under his belt, the season looks dazzling for Hendrick’s ‘golden boy’. However, that reverie recently suffered a massive blow ahead of one of his most difficult tracks.

A fresh hurdle for Kyle Larson 

The 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion may be a brilliant racer. Yet even Kyle Larson has a certain area with scope for improvement – superspeedway racing. His average finish in 22 starts at Daytona International Speedway and 20 starts at Talladega Superspeedway is the exact same: 21.9. He netted a runner-up finish at Talladega this year, but that was because the cars of both Ryan Preece and Joey Logano were disqualified. Larson’s No. 5 Chevrolet also went through tech in the NASCAR research and development center, but came out clean in April. However, it has only been two months, and the car ran out of luck. The timing is bad too, as Atlanta is coming up.

Chase Elliott’s rules violation resulted in a $40,000 fine, a crew chief suspension, and loss of owner points. Now, it’s his teammate’s turn. Kyle Larson stumbled in the pre-qualifying inspection at EchoPark Speedway (Atlanta). The No. 5 car failed inspection twice, finally passing on the third attempt. They narrowly avoided having to serve a pass-through penalty, but the two failures drew twin penalties. First, car chief Jesse Saunders has been ejected, and second, the team lost pit selection. Larson will also start from 36th place. Journalist Peter Stratta updated this penalty on X: “No. 5 Chevrolet of Kyle Larson failed pre-race inspection twice. Car chief Jesse Saunders has been ejected and team has lost out selection.”

Jesse Saunders is an asset to Kyle Larson’s team. He has been employed at HMS since 2013 and was a pivotal member of the team’s 2013 and 2016 championships with Jimmie Johnson. He joined Larson full-time in 2021 and won 10 races in their inaugural season together. Now that Larson will have to tackle Atlanta without him, things have just turned a little harder. In seven races on the reconfigured 1.5-mile drafting track, Larson has five finishes of 30th or worse. It was only this year that Larson finished 3rd in Atlanta.

However, that recent history may be his only hope for the upcoming battle.

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Kyle Larson’s million-dollar chance got weak

Well, NASCAR’s new in-season tournament is coming up. With EchoPark Motor Speedway in the first round, Kyle Larson is in for a tight challenge. The HMS star has been paired up with Tyler Reddick, the rival who beat him to the regular season championship in 2024. Although it is wild to think that Larson would get knocked out in the first round, his history in Atlanta does not help. Larson had DNFs in five of the previous seven Atlanta drafting races entering the weekend, with an implausible 29.8 average finish. With his car chief suspended and with Larson’s last-place starting spot, he might just lose it against Reddick. Unless he can build upon the pace that he attained in February’s Atlanta race.

During the Ambetter Health 400, Kyle Larson proved for the first time that he can tackle superspeedways. Atlanta is a hybrid intermediate track, and Larson achieved goals this year. He could not come to the surface during stage 1, but rocketed from his 17th-place starting spot to a Stage 2 victory. Towards the end, he consistently hovered in the top five and vied for a potential victory. After coming home third, Larson was happy: “It was my first legit finish here at Atlanta since the reconfiguration, so I’ll take it. I feel like we learned a lot and I feel like we can be a lot better with the balance of our race car to be a little bit more on offense while we are in traffic.”

Now, however, Kyle Larson needs to dial up his efforts with a 36th-place starting spot. Let us wait and see how well he performs without his car chief.