Last month, Kyle Larson had tamed the untamable. By winning the 2023 playoff opener at Darlington Raceway, the Hendrick Motorsports icon made his way into the round of 12 with ease. He then repeated the same feat in the opening race of the round of 8 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and became the first driver to claim a spot in the Championship 4 race. Good for the Elk Grove resident, isn’t it? Well, it is complicated.

One might be surprised to know that despite these great results, Kyle Larson has been suffering from just one disease and that one disease just doesn’t get off his back. But what is this disease? Let’s take a look.

Nothing stands between Kyle Larson and his championship shot except for a 13-lettered word

The 31-year-old speedster has emerged victorious in all three round of 8 tracks earlier in his career. With the highest number of top-5 finishes in the playoff field (tied with William Byron at 14), Kyle Larson is among the fan favorites to win this year’s Championship title. But there is a problem.

This HMS icon has six P30 or worse finishes this season, seven including this past weekend’s race at Miami. Making crucial mistakes at the most decisive moments has often left this talented driver shrouded in the darkness. Even his victory at Las Vegas came after he crashed into the outside wall with about 140 laps into the South Point 400.

Fast forward to yesterday’s race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Kyle Larson rammed into the water barriers at the pit road entryway, which hurled him out of contention despite having earned a stage win. Unfortunately, the #5 team had to settle for a 34th-place finish in the 36-car field.

As you would have figured, inconsistency is the word that’s holding Larson back. Surely, fourteen Top 5 appearances and 8 DNFs don’t look good on the same paper.

Moments after the race was over, Larson expressed how sorry he was for having nudged Ryan Blaney during that split-second contact. Besides that, he also shed light on how little mistakes could result in something much bigger.

Watch this story: Kyle Larson: A Racing Prodigy’s Dream Journey

Kyle Larson is upset with the ripple effect of his on-track blunders

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As most would agree, this past Sunday’s race and next week’s race doesn’t matter a lot to Kyle Larson, as he is already locked into the top 4, Larson is an athlete who takes every game seriously. Larson had wanted to go for the win, even at Homestead-Miami. Alas, it backfired.

In a conversation with co-host for “Off The Grid” on NBC, Kim Coon, Larson said, “I was just maximizing all I could.” Larson didn’t expect Blaney to slow down when he did. Hence, he didn’t have the time to brakes. The HMS driver explained that he was just trying to get to his pit box as early as possible.

“I was just trying to get to as close to his back bumper as I could to hopefully have a good cycle, have a better pit stop, and come out in front of him and control the race from there,” said Larson.

Larson seemed to be quite regretful about his actions. Beating himself up, Larson added, “Just upset more than anything on myself. Even if he did slow down early, I still should not have pushed so hard.”

“Just got to learn from little mistakes and your little mistakes kinda just compound throughout your whole race and then you end up in the care center because of it,” he said before walking away, disappointed.

Let’s just cross our fingers so that this driver doesn’t waste his opportunities anymore with inconsistency. After all, qualifying for the Championship 4 and not winning it hurts more than anything else. What are your thoughts on this?

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