Kyle Larson has a chance to cap off a stellar 2021 season with his first career NASCAR Cup Series championship.
Larson enters Sunday’s Cup Series Championship Race with nine wins on the board. He has scored 19 top-fives and 25 top-10s over the course of the season’s 35 races and along the way led a staggering 2,474 laps. That’s more than 900 laps at the front of the field ahead of the next best driver in the series Denny Hamlin, who has led 1,502.
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It’s a testament to Larson’s ability behind the wheel as well as the strength and support at Hendrick Motorsports. Larson and his teammate Chase Elliott both have a chance to win the title as part of the Championship 4, making it somewhat difficult for team owner Rick Hendrick to balance his emotions.
“I love the No. 5 car because it was my first car, and the paint scheme is my son’s paint scheme it has Hendrick Cars on it, so that’s important,” Hendrick said. “But I want to see Chase Elliott get back-to-back championships.
“It’s hard to say you can have both; we just hope that one of them can pull it off. It means a lot in both situations because to see Chase as such a young champion and a chance to go back-to-back. You look at Kyle and you say he has won 10 races, counting the All-Star Race, and they’ve been so bulletproof; it would be a great way to cap it off after his first year with us.”
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Another huge component to the Larson success story has been crew chief Cliff Daniels, who after two seasons working with Jimmie Johnson was paired up with Larson for the 2021 season. Needless to say, it’s been a match made in heaven.
“I think knowing Cliff now and knowing his confidence, you would never guess that he hadn’t ever won a Cup Series race before or hadn’t competed in the playoffs as a Cup crew chief just because of how driven and focused (he is) and how his leadership is,” Larson said.
“It’s unmatched. It’s no surprise to me that we’ve been able to have success with him leading our team. We’ve accomplished a lot together this year and it’d be cool to each get our first championship.”
In addition to Elliott, Larson will have two more formidable foes to battle with for the title Sunday in Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. But he brings tremendous confidence into Phoenix and believes everything is in place to give you an excellent opportunity to win the championship and put the finishing touches on one of the most dominant seasons in recent NASCAR history.
“It’s definitely the most important race ever in my career,” Larson said. “I’m fortunate that it’s at Phoenix. It’s a track I haven’t won at before, but I’ve had some really good runs there, and earlier this year we had a really, really good race car. I just made two mistakes and sped on pit road two different times. If I can clean up those mistakes, I think we’ll have a great shot to win. It’ll be tough, but I’m looking forward to a chance to race for a championship.”
