AVONDALE, Ariz. — Kyle Larson has twice reached the pinnacle of his NASCAR Cup Series career at Phoenix Raceway, capturing a pair of championships at the Arizona oval. Still, the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team left no stone unturned, dedicating as much time and effort to its preparation this weekend as it does for any race on the schedule.
That investment didn‘t translate into results during Sunday‘s Freeway Insurance 500. Larson‘s torrid pace through the opening six Chase presented by Mobil 1 races, highlighted by a 2.8 average finish, came to an abrupt halt.
MORE: Race results | Phoenix weekend schedule
“We put as much effort into this race as we have for a Phoenix race, really, ever — and that‘s a lot to say because typically Phoenix is the championship race,” Cliff Daniels, crew chief for the No. 5 team, said to a group of media members after Larson DNF‘d with a tire failure and was credited with a 34th-place finish. “We put a lot of hard work into it. I‘m a big believer that the Good Lord has us right where we‘re supposed to be, and sometimes you have difficulty, you have struggles. Today was a terrible day. Our car was way off, don‘t know why, because we had done a lot of work in the sim.
“Kyle, to his credit, was really invested in it, and we were too as a team. We thought we were solving for something correctly from where we‘ve been here in the past. It obviously didn‘t come together today.”
Larson sounded the alarm throughout the week, repeatedly acknowledging that the 1-mile oval hasn‘t historically been one of his strongest tracks. Yet when the checkered flag waved in previous instances, the No. 5 team had capitalized on every opportunity, extending its streak to three consecutive third-place finishes and four straight top fives entering this weekend.
From the moment the track opened for practice Saturday, Larson and the No. 5 Chevrolet appeared a tick behind, especially compared to his primary championship rivals, who swept the top five starting spots in qualifying. Larson could manage only the 22nd-fastest lap in time trials.
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When the green flag waved Sunday, Larson made early progress, climbing five positions in the opening four laps. By the end of Stage 1, however, he had slipped back to 22nd after a two-tire gamble briefly brought him inside the top five.
His struggles intensified during a lengthy green-flag run in Stage 2, as Larson fell a lap down and dropped to 28th. A caution on Lap 157 allowed him to take the wave-around and return to the lead lap, which he managed to maintain — barely — through the end of the stage.
An extended pit stop at the end of Stage 2 allowed Daniels to make a massive swing, hoping to find answers.
“We threw so many things at that car, that man, I‘m just waiting to see a sign of life, and I don‘t know that we made it a lot better,” Daniels added. “Don‘t know why, very unfortunate. I very much give Kyle a lot of credit for not cussing me out or quitting, all the things that he could have done — he kept fighting, too. Just an ugly day.”
During another round of green-flag pit stops, Larson pitted early and climbed to 16th in the running order. He quickly slipped back to 17th behind Austin Cindric before suffering a right-front tire failure on Lap 281, 31 laps shy of the finish.
“I went to the brakes into [Turn] 1 and the right front was down,” Larson said from the infield care center, “so couldn‘t slow down and along for the ride.”
Larson wasn‘t stunned by the No. 5 team‘s struggles at Phoenix. But just how much the Daniels-led group missed the mark was puzzling, particularly given its knack for finding solutions during the heat of battle.
“I didn‘t expect to be good, but I didn‘t expect to be that bad either,” Larson added. “We were just trying to fight as much as we could and scratch and claw for whatever finish we were going to get.”
MORE: Cup Series standings | Cup Series schedule
Daniels was surprised the team had run the tire pressure too low. He noted that the No. 5 team had a full pound more air pressure in its tires than it did during last year‘s Championship 4 race, when Larson also suffered a tire failure.
Daniels said: “I thought we had margin in the tank there and obviously we didn‘t.”
With Larson scoring just three points, the competition ate into their deficits. The reigning champ now holds a five-point lead over Christopher Bell while Chase Briscoe (minus-24), Denny Hamlin (minus-31), Ryan Blaney (minus-40), Joey Logano (minus-44) and Tyler Reddick (minus-56) are all in the mix with three races remaining.
As Daniels explained, having a misstep isn‘t uncommon for the No. 5 team.
“If you plot the average finishing position of the 5 team, ever, it looks just like this,” Daniels noted. “We‘re OK, and we have a lot of strength; we have a lot of poise. We are not fearful of what‘s ahead. We‘re going to keep fighting hard.
“I know Talladega is a tough one next, but we are typically capable of putting together two-thirds of a really good race at Talladega. Now we just need to put all three of the thirds together. Martinsville, we will be OK, and Homestead, it‘s game on. Three more races, we‘re going to be strong, we‘re going to be tough.”
All 15 of Larson‘s fellow Chase competitors gained at least 12 points on the championship leader at Phoenix. Tyler Reddick, who earned his first victory since mid-April, made the biggest move, gaining 58 points and cutting more than half of his 114-point deficit. Larson‘s average race over the last seven races ballooned to 7.3.