Kyle Larson, Hendrick Motorsports show they have things figured out with big win at Sonoma
By Bob Pockrass
FOX Sports NASCAR Writer
SONOMA, Calif. — Kyle Larson has always known how to go fast at Sonoma Raceway.
In six previous visits, he started no worse than fifth, and in Sunday’s race, he took the green from the pole for the fourth consecutive year. But he had never raced well at Sonoma, with a previous best finish of 10th.
That was before Larson schooled the field Sunday. The victory, in which he led 57 of the 92 laps, was another sign of his growth as a driver in his first season with Hendrick Motorsports.
He produced very good but not great results while with Chip Ganassi Racing from 2014 to 2020. Now he has reached "great" status, even on road courses, which many would peg as his potential biggest challenge in NASCAR.
Larson has the competition worried but not surprised, as many consider him a generational talent. Now he’s proving it.
While this was his first road-course win, Larson knows he could have had one earlier this year, as he probably would have won the road-course race at Circuit of the Americas had rain not shortened the event.
He backed up that showing with his performance Sunday, a performance that in some ways declared Larson the new driver to beat on road courses.
Where did it come from? It didn’t just come from having more laps or from what many would say is better equipment.
Larson has started working with Scott Speed, a former Formula 1 and NASCAR racer.
"Scott is one of the best American road racers we've ever seen," Larson said. "Getting to pick his brain a lot, look at areas where I've probably struggled in the past, Scott really helped me this week.
"I had my mindset, how I thought you needed to out-brake people, which was opposite of what you really needed to do. So talking to him, I felt like I got a lot better out-braking people. I was able to pass people really easily."
Part of that learning process is looking at the data that all teams have of where drivers use the brake and throttle as they navigate a course. Larson studied where he could improve.
And so has Hendrick as a team.
"To be very candid, the issues he's had of handling and the cars in the past at Ganassi, we have had the same issues," said Larson crew chief Cliff Daniels, who used to be crew chief for Jimmie Johnson. "I can't say Hendrick has been as good as we need to be here.
"I think it was more of a Chevrolet thing in the past. We struggled the last couple trips here with Jimmie. Some of our other teammates did as well."
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How did the organization improve for the first race at Sonoma since 2019? They looked to the driver and team who dominated the road courses the past couple of years: Larson’s Hendrick teammate Chase Elliott and crew chief Alan Gustafson, who could argue that Larson needs to win more races before being crowned the best road-course driver in NASCAR at the moment.
"We've all been able to take that kind of foundation of what they've built, and we get to go apply it at these tracks we haven't been at in a while," Daniels said. "Obviously, we have a few new tracks coming up that we haven't been to either.
"We have to keep building on it, which is a really cool spot to be in. We'll just see how it goes."
If Larson can continue to build on his performance the past five weeks – three second-place finishes followed by two wins – he will be unstoppable this year.
His performance at Sonoma, especially the improvement he showed in his ability to race there, had his opponents shaking their heads.
"He’s always been fast here. He has speed here," said Joey Logano, who earned his third consecutive top-5 finish on a road course. "He just has a car that hangs on for him now.
"That was probably the difference."
In each of the road-course races this year, Larson has been fast. Those following him are trying to figure out how to catch him.
"We’ve fought different issues at every road course," Joe Gibbs Racing driver Kyle Busch said. "I don’t know if the Hendrick cars run the same setup every week, but we keep making little tweaks, and we keep chasing different demons.
"We’re right there. We’ve got good, fast cars. Toyota, JGR are doing a really good job, but we just definitely don’t have the overall pace to the 5 [of Larson] for sure."
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The only driver to have the pace of Larson on Sunday was Elliott, who just didn’t have enough. Maybe it is the most difficult for Elliott to decipher, considering that his team knows exactly what Larson’s car has and what he is doing.
"There were spots on the track where I thought I was a tick better, and there were spots on the track he was better," Elliott said. "Then there were spots I thought we were fairly even. [We] needed to have a tick more to get after it."
Larson’s competitors will still point toward equipment, especially as Larson and Elliott were 1-2 in the past two road-course races (with Elliott winning at COTA).
"A great driver can only do so much in a mediocre car, and vice versa," Logano said. "I always think it’s 50-50 and now he’s got both.
"That’s why we’re all racing with our tongues hanging out trying to catch him."
Thinking out loud
NASCAR will allow Camping World Truck Series driver Hailie Deegan (and others) to compete in Tony Stewart’s new short-track SRX Series, and that is the right thing to do.
NASCAR, if it wanted to be petty or show frustration over Stewart's starting "Superstar Racing Experience" events for six Saturday nights in the summer, could have refused to allow one of its biggest young stars to compete.
The NASCAR testing policy forbids, without NASCAR approval, participation in any series that could be considered a stock-car equivalent to a NASCAR national series car. With Stewart's series having similar engines and other components, NASCAR could have told Deegan and potentially others that they couldn’t do those races and compete in NASCAR events.
NASCAR won’t allow Deegan to test. It apparently didn’t want her getting many extra laps at Knoxville Raceway, which will have a truck race later this year. That makes sense, as does allowing her to race instead of creating drama and bad blood where they don't need to be.
Social spotlight
Stat of the day
Hendrick Motorsports has finished 1-2 in four consecutive races.
They said it
"Our car was better than Hendrick Motorsports has been here in the past. I think that helps my job out a lot." — Kyle Larson
Bob Pockrass has spent decades covering motorsports, including the past 30 Daytona 500s. He joined FOX Sports in 2019 following stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @bobpockrass. Looking for more NASCAR content? Sign up for the FOX Sports NASCAR Newsletter with Bob Pockrass!
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