Kyle Larson from Hendrick Motorsports, with a 14th-place finish, produced the team’s best result at Phoenix. Going into the race, Larson was among the favorites to clinch the win at the venue, especially after coming off strong after his win in Vegas. However, with the addition of NASCAR’s new short-track package, the driver and the team could not deliver the best performance. This was evident from the practice and qualifying rounds.

It was expected that the team at HMS would make the necessary tweaks and give Larson a ride that he could compete with, but that was not the case. The driver seemed to struggle with the car being tight in the middle and could not pass. Adding to his dismay, his pit crew also lost the plot and somewhat restricted his attempts to gain position throughout the race. Speaking in DJD’s latest episode, Larson explained his struggles at pit road during the Phoenix race, and surprisingly, he was not too disappointed with his finish.

Kyle Larson satisfied with the results at Phoenix despite his troubles on the pit road

After the end of Stage 1, the #5 car managed to finish in 11th place. Coming to the pit road during the stage break, Larson had issues with his left-rear tire; the lug nut would not lock. He did manage to bounce back from the setback and drove from 33rd to 14th in the second stage. But once again, during the stage break, his car had issues with the right rear tire, and this niggling issue cost him dearly in terms of position on the track.

“Honestly, I didn’t feel like horrible with my balance, but it was just really hard to pass. We had a couple of issues on the pit road, left rear wheel, nut didn’t get all the way tight, so I had to come back down the pit road after we gained like four spots. Again, later in the race, something happened on the right rear. So it was just a rough day.”

Larson also added, “Honestly, for us to finish 14th, was maximizing as much as we could. Proud of the team and myself for not freaking out, crashing or something. Because that’s probably what I would have done last year. So we will just take it, move on, learn from it, and try and do better next time.”

The ragging topic from last weekend’s Cup Series race in Phoenix was the roll-out of the new short track package. However, like most of the drivers, Larson didn’t notice drastic changes to the race car.

“It was just a little bit better,” – Larson on the new short-track package

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As far as data and statistics are concerned, the newly launched short-track package on paper was a success. There were a total of 2,800 green flag passes during the race, which is the most at the venue during the NextGen car era. Larson, sharing his opinion on the package, suggested that there were improvements, but they hardly affected the trend of racing at the particular race track.

“I thought it was just a little bit better. As long as I’ve been going there, it’s been very hard to pass, and the races have been fairly similar with what we had this past Sunday. With the NextGen stuff, everybody’s cars are more equal, so it’s harder to move forward. I thought you could manipulate the guy in front of you a little more…But it was slightly better; it wasn’t way different. For Phoenix, I don’t really know what you can do to make it look amazing,” Larson said.

Moving forward, Kyle Larson will be competing at Bristol Motor Speedway in the next Cup Series race this weekend. The HMS driver has managed three top-fives and a win at Bristol, so needless to say, he will be looking to bounce back after the sub-par showings at Phoenix.

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