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NASCAR, Motorsport, USA Cup Series-Qualifying Nov 1, 2025 Avondale, Arizona, USA NASCAR Cup Series driver Kyle Larson 5 during qualifying at Phoenix Raceway. Avondale Phoenix Raceway Arizona USA, EDITORIAL USE ONLY PUBLICATIONxINxGERxSUIxAUTxONLY Copyright: xGaryxA.xVasquezx 20251101_gav_sv5_005
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NASCAR, Motorsport, USA Cup Series-Qualifying Nov 1, 2025 Avondale, Arizona, USA NASCAR Cup Series driver Kyle Larson 5 during qualifying at Phoenix Raceway. Avondale Phoenix Raceway Arizona USA, EDITORIAL USE ONLY PUBLICATIONxINxGERxSUIxAUTxONLY Copyright: xGaryxA.xVasquezx 20251101_gav_sv5_005
In November 2025, Kyle Larson celebrated his second Cup championship, which was five months ago. However, the last time Larson celebrated in the victory lane has been much, much longer than that. But despite the win drought the #5 driver is going through, he remains optimistic about the future.
Kyle Larson hopeful of breaking his winless drought
The last time Kyle Larson won a Cup race was at Kansas in May 2025. It’s been 31 races since his last trip to victory lane, which is the longest time he has gone between wins during his time at Hendrick Motorsports.
Ahead of Bristol, Larson was asked whether his winning 31 races ago doesn’t feel as long, considering his Phoenix championship celebrations. The Hendrick Motorsports driver said it feels ‘more no than yes’, because his dirt race wins help in that regard. But at the same time, he emphasised he wants to celebrate in the Victory Lane soon and is working as hard as ever to make that happen.
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“We want to win. It’s just gotten really tough for whatever reason. So, just got some good tracks coming up for us, and hopefully we can do a good job and execute. But this series is tough. I know a lot of times we made winning look easy, but it’s not, and I’ve never felt it was easy. But we just gotta keep working at it,” Larson described.
Kyle Larson has a 31-race winless streak. But he also won a Cup title in that span. So does it feel like he is on that long of a winless streak? @NASCARONFOX pic.twitter.com/bbCGLZVKjw
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) April 8, 2026
Having said that, he remarked that it is ‘wild’ that it’d soon almost be a year since he last won, considering he doesn’t feel he’s getting poor results.
It’s worth mentioning that since his last win in May 2025, Larson has eight top 5 finishes and nine top 10 finishes to his name. So far this season, his best result came at Phoenix, a 3rd place finish, and except for Darlington, he has finished inside the top 10 in the last five races.
Larson made things worse for himself at Darlington according to Kevin Harvick
Speaking on the Happy Hour podcast following Darlington, Kevin Harvick commented on the state of the #5 team at that point. Given his 32nd-place result after an early wreck, Harvick said it was telling of where Larson and his team are with their cars and pace.
“I think for him, wrecking from 11th, those are the things that you can’t do. You can’t do that in this point system. If you have an 11th-place car, you have to finish 11th, otherwise you’re just throwing dirt on yourself and making things worse,” Harvick said.
Harvick remarked that even at Las Vegas, where he was in the mix and ran in the top 5, he didn’t have ‘dominant speed’.
All of these results have ensured that this year’s defending Cup champion is in 9th place in the points standings, 147 points off the top.
At Bristol, he’d have a chance to win his first race in over a year. While his last result there was a 32nd-place finish, he has won thrice at Bristol. In fact, it is one of his strongest tracks.
In 13 starts since 2017, he has finished 11 times inside the top 10, three of which were wins.
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Suyashdeep Sason