Kyle Larson plans on getting to Victory Lane in 2019 something that escaped him during last year’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season.
The Chip Ganassi Racing driver won four times in 2017 but was shutout a year ago. He did finish second six times and Larson believes his team has that to build on for the coming campaign.
“You can’t be too upset with running second,” Larson said. “It’s better than third, and we’re beating some really good teams. I think we ran second six times last year and I feel like half of those we could have won if I did things differently or if things worked out differently at the end of the races.
“It’s easy to look at last year when we have zero wins and it’s a bad year. But we easily could have had three wins and finished ninth in points and it would have been a good year. You have to be perfect to win these Cup races, so as I get more experience, I feel myself and team put ourselves in better position to win races.”
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Despite being shutout of Victory Lane, Larson was consistently near the front of the field last year. That performance gives Larson confidence things will get better in 2019.
“Last year, obviously we didn’t get a win, but consistency is a big part of it,” he said. “It’s a bit disappointing, but you can’t be disappointed with second either when you’re going against stout driver and teams and with all the money everybody is spending. We do really well with what we have; with a small, two-car team I feel we do really well against other two-car teams and those big for-car teams.”
There is the big unknown of the 2019 Cup Series rules package that will drastically cut horsepower while working in concert with a number of significant aerodynamic modifications to the cars. Larson is not sure what kind of racing the new parameters will produce but is embracing the changes for the new campaign.
“I think there will be tracks where there will be really exciting racing and there will be tracks where the old package was better,” Larson explained. “For a track like Atlanta, I don’t know how it will be because you’re going to have off-throttle time and won’t be wide open and it will be harder to pass.
“Then you go to a track like Vegas and you see how exciting the truck races are there, and I think out style is similar to a truck package so it will be really exciting. That’s just kind of a guess.”
There is also something else new for Larson to adjust to this season. He’ll have a new teammate in Kurt Busch, who comes over from Stewart-Haas Racing to take the CGR No. 1 ride formerly driven by Jamie McMurray. Larson is hopes the veteran’s presence will be another added benefit to a successful season ahead.
“I’m working forward to working with him,” Larson said. “He’s an ultra-competitive person from what I’ve heard of him and you can tell by his personality, so that will be fun to be around.”
