Everyone Counted Kyle Larson Out. Now He’s Back in NASCAR’s Top Five.

For weeks, Kyle Larson felt like the forgotten championship contender. Not because the speed disappeared. Not because Hendrick Motorsports suddenly lost its edge.

And certainly not because Larson stopped looking like one of NASCAR’s most talented drivers. The results simply weren’t matching the performance.

While Tyler Reddick, Denny Hamlin and a handful of Toyota drivers dominated headlines throughout the spring, Larson quietly endured one of the strangest stretches of his Cup Series career. The speed was there. The finishes often weren’t.

That’s why Sunday’s race at Naval Base Coronado felt bigger than a fourth-place finish. It felt like confirmation.

After another strong run in San Diego, Larson climbed back into fourth place in the NASCAR Cup Series standings, his highest position in more than a month. More importantly, he’s suddenly driving like a championship threat again.

The scary part for the rest of the garage? Larson says the No. 5 team is still getting better.

Kyle Larson Thinks NASCAR Is Finally Seeing the Real No. 5 Team

The easiest way to judge a season is by looking at the standings. Larson believes that’s also the easiest way to miss what’s actually been happening.

For much of the year, the No. 5 Chevrolet has shown race-winning speed. What it lacked was consistency in the results column. Bad luck, mistakes and missed opportunities repeatedly turned strong weekends into average finishes.

Inside the team, however, panic never arrived.

“We’re definitely finding momentum, and our race cars are getting better,” Larson said after Sunday’s race. “It’s giving me more confidence, all the good things that you need. Just got to keep it going.”

That confidence is beginning to show.

Larson has now posted four top-five finishes in his last five starts. During that stretch, he has steadily chipped away at the standings while many of his rivals have stumbled.

The result is a driver who suddenly looks far more dangerous than his season statistics might suggest.

The Turning Point May Have Happened Before Anyone Noticed

What makes Larson’s recent climb interesting is that he doesn’t view it as a comeback. He views it as a correction.

According to Larson, the No. 5 team spent much of the first half of the season adapting to NASCAR’s evolving competitive landscape while trying to maximize a car that wasn’t always the fastest in the field.

“By the end of 2025, we had already seen the surge of the Toyotas,” Larson said. “And I think that carried over into the early part of this year.”

Rather than chasing quick fixes, Hendrick Motorsports focused on its process.

The team worked through personnel changes. Engineers continued learning. The organization refined its understanding of the current rules package.

Now the benefits are beginning to appear.

“So now we’re getting settled in on that,” Larson said. “Our team has been very locked into our process this whole time.”

That may be the most important quote in the entire conversation.

Championship-caliber teams rarely make dramatic midseason overhauls. More often, they trust what they see internally and wait for the results to catch up.

That appears to be exactly what happened here.

Why the Rest of NASCAR Should Pay Attention

The standings tell one story. The trend line tells another.

Larson still trails Tyler Reddick by 180 points and sits well behind Denny Hamlin in the regular-season race.

But that’s not the number competitors should be watching. The more important statistic is four top-five finishes in five races.

Momentum matters in NASCAR, especially this time of year.

With Sonoma next on the schedule and the postseason drawing closer, Larson is beginning to look like the driver many expected to see all season.

That’s bad news for everyone else. A month ago, the conversation centered on what was wrong with Kyle Larson’s season.

Now he’s back inside the top five, running near the front almost every week, and openly talking about momentum. The standings say he’s fourth. The last five races suggest he may be climbing much higher.

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