Kyle Larson isn’t ready to say Hendrick Motorsports has passed Toyota on NASCAR’s intermediate tracks. Denny Hamlin made that claim after Larson’s dominant win at Kansas Speedway on Sunday.
Hamlin was asked if Hendrick and Chevrolet had caught Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota on 1.5-mile tracks. “Well, the 5 was the best car today, so I mean, I would say that they’ve been passed,” Hamlin said.
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Larson, who also races sprint cars in other forms of motorsports, led 235 of 267 laps and swept both stages on his way to the win. He was asked the same question in his post-race press conference.
Larson said several other cars were strong at Kansas, not just his No. 5.
“Yeah, no, that’s a good question. I’m trying to pay attention to or like come up with those thoughts and ideas as I’m leading and pulling away from Denny, who’s so dominant here.
“And then, you look at Austin Cindric, who I think potentially had probably the best car, arguably for the second half of a run.”
Austin Cindric finished second. Larson also pointed to William Byron, Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott, and Chase Briscoe.
“I don’t know the rest of the order, but I feel like it’s more equal. You know, I thought Briscoe was definitely a great car again.
“So yeah, it’s hard to say. If a Toyota was controlling the race and getting the restarts and being out in clean air, it could have looked more dominant than what our run looked like today.”
He said his team has improved its cars, but that the whole day had to come together.
“You just don’t know. But yeah, I do feel like we’ve gotten our cars better. And then, again, it takes more than your car being fast. It’s all gotta go together.
“We had the metric work out in our favor. We had solid pit stops all day long. You know, restarts worked out. I was able to block good enough for four or five laps and get stretched out and kind of settle in.”
Rain canceled practice and qualifying at Kansas. It was the third time in the first four Chase races that rain wiped out qualifying.
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The field was set by a formula instead, which put Joey Logano on the pole and Larson alongside him. Larson said that start made a big difference.
“I’m not convinced that I was better than them because we didn’t get to qualify. You know, so I got to line up on the front row.
“There was no qualifying. So the weekend could have looked quite a bit different if, you know, say I qualify seventh. I don’t know if it would have looked as good as it did today.”
The Chase moves to Las Vegas Motor Speedway, another 1.5-mile track, on Oct. 4. Hamlin won the last two Cup races there. Larson said a full weekend with qualifying will give a better read on where Chevrolet stands.
“So I still have some skepticism of where I really rank to the guys who are really good on intermediates, but we’re going to go to Vegas. I’m sure it’s not going to rain in Vegas.
“So we’re going to get to qualify and we’ll see. We’ll see how that kind of shakes the weekend up.”
Larson leads Hamlin by 26 points with six races left.
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