Kyle Larson's winless drought was a bigger deal to you than him

16 months
51 races

If it wasn’t for the fact that the punditry has made a big deal out of this, Kyle Larson wouldn’t know or wouldn’t care how long it’s been since he had won a NASCAR Cup Series race.

May 11, 2025 at Kansas Speedway

To him, the stat simply didn’t mean that much. Sure, there was a championship win in November but the Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 team has been hyper-competitive all season while having things just work against them.

So, naturally, when asked if he felt like he was back, Larson gave a predictably blunt answer.

“I mean, back to what,” Larson said with a chuckle. “Back to 2021? Back to 2024? No. We’ve definitely been building to get back to Victory Lane. I don’t know that we’re quite yet to where we can go dominate like we have in the past.

A day like today definitely gives you confidence leading into a track where we know we can go dominate. So yeah, no, it’s just been neat to see all the hard work kind of pay off to a moment like this.”

Watch: Larson after breakthrough win: ‘We got our swagger back’

Larson has been a fixture inside of the top five for over a month now and has opened the Chase for the Championship with two mega points days. He’s now second in the standings behind Denny Hamlin.

So no, eliminating the winless drought wasn’t some massive burden off his figurative back because he wasn’t feeling the pressure anyway.

“Every week, I heard you guys tell the new number,” Larson said. “It didn’t seem that large. So no, I think just having trust is what it really boils down to. I never lost trust in our group. Maybe trust and confidence in myself at times, but it’s easy to look in the mirror and kind of doubt yourself.

“The people around me, I never doubted.”

The people around Larson, combined with one of the most prolific race car drivers of all time, have produced 27 victories and two championships together. While Larson is usually stoic in the face of adversity, it’s that team around him that sometimes needs to be picked up by leadership figures like Jeff Gordon.

“I think, if anything, it’s probably challenged those guys the most,” Gordon said. “We’ve had a lot of conversations this year about maybe how we’ve been approaching some of the races, knowing we’re behind. We were always trying to catch up, get our cars better, working through that with all of our teammates at Chevy, Chevy themselves internally.

“The effort was being put in, and we just weren’t seeing the results. Just kind of took some time this season. I feel like it’s been a really long season. Over the last four, five months, maybe two or three months, we’ve definitely been seeing some things start to be put together. “

Watch: Larson not scared of the struggle after first win in 51 races

And Gordon also praised the leadership of crew chief Cliff Daniels.

“While he was tested, I thought he never wavered,” Gordon said. “I just felt like he found ways to keep the team together. He knows he’s asking a lot out of his folks from trying to make the cars go faster.

“Yeah, he’s tenacious and relentless. That’s what it takes to win at this level, and win championships. But that can also be hard on himself as well as be hard on the people around him. You got to keep those folks together when you’re asking that much out of them. I don’t know that anybody does a better job of that than Cliff.”

To Larson’s own point, this isn’t the team that won 10 times in 2021 or six in 2024. Hamlin is still the championship favorite even after two hiccups to open The Chase for the Championship.

But that doesn’t mean they are underdogs.

“I can see how on paper or in the media’s eyes or maybe even some competitors’ eyes you could doubt us,” Larson said. “I think that would be reasonable. We hadn’t won in 51 races. We were kind of just mid throughout the season, not starting as high as we want to be in the Chase. I could see that.

“I don’t really view myself as that. I don’t really feel like I’m going to prove them wrong either. I’m just showing up to the racetrack to do the best job I can. I think when you focus on yourself, that’s when you can find the most success.”