CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Kyle Larson won more races (four) than any other NASCAR Cup Series driver during the 26-race regular season and he enters the playoffs as the No. 1 seed because of the playoff points he earned.
He believes his Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 team is in prime position to capitalize on a strong regular season where he finished a single point behind Tyler Reddick despite missing the Coca-Cola 600 while competing in the Indianapolis 500 on Memorial Day weekend.
In addition to four victories, Larson had 10 top-five finishes in the 25 races he’s run this season.
“I think our strengths are our speed. We’re really fast, I feel like, at every race track; road courses, superspeedways, all that,” Larson said on Wednesday. “Our execution is – I know it might not seem like it at times, but I think our execution is great. And I think we’ve also overcome a lot of adversity at times, so I think we’re well-rounded as a team. We’ve gone to the final four the last three years, so I think that gives us a lot of confidence, as well.”
Larson acknowledged that every round a driver advances gets little more difficult.
“I don’t know what our odds would be, but I feel strongly that we can have a great playoffs,” he said. “I would hope that we’d make the Championship 4. It just gets tougher and tougher each round. But there’s good tracks for us in the first round, too. There’s obviously tracks in each round that are a little bit more worrisome than others, but I think we’re strong at every track. As long as we can execute at a high level, I think we’ll be OK.”
The first round of races at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Watkins Glen (N.Y.) Int’l and Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, make Larson a little nervous.
“I don’t love seeing Atlanta in the playoffs at all. And even Watkins Glen for that matter, just because – yes, I like those tracks, but they’re just sketchy places,” he said. “But if they’re going to be in the playoffs, I would rather them be in the first round than the second or third round. So yeah, I mean I think having the bonus points and playoff points that we’ve earned throughout the regular season is nice.
“But it still doesn’t guarantee anything. You still have to not run into any trouble, especially in back-to-back weeks, and hopefully you can just make it through.”
Larson believes the inconsistency in performance during the Next Gen car era makes the playoffs a little more unpredictable as well.
“You definitely have your favorites and guys that are really fast every week,” Larson said. “But it’s NASCAR and Next Gen racing, so it’s always crazy. There’s always a couple of heavy guys that get knocked out somewhat early that could very well be deserving champions. So yeah, it’s hard to predict who’s going to be in the Championship 4.
“There’s definitely some good teams that have the best shot currently. But like I said, a lot of stuff can happen. There’s always usually a team or two that turns things up a lot in the playoffs; executes really well and makes it pretty far.”