NASCAR CUP SERIES: GO BOWLING AT THE GLEN

August 8, 2021

Kyle Larson

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by Kyle Larson, our race winner and driver of the No. 5 Hendrickcars.com Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. You had a pretty strong day. Can you tell us a little bit about your run?

KYLE LARSON: Yeah, it was a good day. In the beginning there I knew I had a fast car and was able to close in on Joey and Brad pretty quickly, and just couldn't really do anything with them at that point because they were a little bit better than me in the areas where I needed to build a run. But I knew my car was good and had a lot of grip. Gave me confidence there, and once the strategies kind of worked out and I ended up mid-pack, I knew I needed to beat the 22 and the 11 to the front, and then I would have better tires than those guys in front of me, and the strategy would work out.

Thankfully that's what happened. Our pit crew did a great job on the green flag stop and got us out in front of the 19, and we were able to kind of maintain that gap for a little while and then eventually start to pull away, and thankfully the 9 was not close enough there at the end because he was really, really fast.

Q. When you want info on a faster car, I heard it on the radio with you and Cliff, how often do you want it?

KYLE LARSON: Well, I mean, under caution -- obviously I knew the 9 car and his history on road courses, like he's the guy to judge off of and how you're going to be. You couldn't really get a good judge because he had to start in the back. I felt like he made it up a good ways. I seen the big screen early, and he passed like 18 cars in the first run.

Then I was like, man, he was really fast. Then he was -- I think the way the cycle worked out at the end of the stage he was not bad, so I was a little bit -- I was definitely worried about him all day.

Then I didn't see him, but he had his lock-up issue, and that kind of was able to give us the gap that all of us needed to hold off -- well, I guess I was the only guy that could hold off Chase there at the end.

He was so fast. Yeah, I was wondering kind of how he was, and my team was doing a good job of keeping me aware of the gap and how it was shrinking, so I knew he was really fast, and just trying to judge the gap in my head and manage it and not make as many mistakes, and hopefully he wouldn't be to my back bumper, but then we caught that thick traffic and I got held up a lot right there, but thankfully I had a big enough gap.

Q. You're tied for the regular season points lead. What's the mindset with three races to go? Hamlin said it'll likely come down to the last lap at Daytona.

KYLE LARSON: Yeah, and he's so good at Daytona, too, so it would be nice to get a couple good weeks and get that point lead because I know he's going to go there, and anything can happen at Daytona but I know he's going to go there and he's going to get stage points and he's going to challenge for the win.

I know he's looking at me as the same. If he could go into Daytona being even or ahead, he's going to feel like he's got the advantage.

I'd like to have a good couple weeks before we get there and give us a little bit of wiggle room.

Q. Where did you feel like you were better than everybody else on the track like spot-wise, and when did you get the lead from the 19 there during the sequence of green flag pit stops?

KYLE LARSON: Yeah, I felt like -- well, I felt really good up to the esses, but I would give up a lot into the esses but then I would motor up and gain that back if not a little bit more by the time we got to the Bus Stop, and through the Bus Stop I felt like I was pretty good, and then I felt like I could manage well through the Carousel, gain a little bit in 6 and then lose some through 7 and probably maintain or lose a little bit through 1.

I was happy with my car and felt like -- I felt like I could pass okay. There was just some of the good -- the few good cars that were just a little bit better than me through 7 where I couldn't really get runs into 1 or they were a little bit better than me off of the Carousel and I couldn't get to where I needed to be off their back bumper through 6.

We'll work on that a little bit, but all in all I was really happy with my race car.

Q. On the Christopher Bell contact, his comment, he said he didn't feel like you maybe had as much of a run off of 7 so he was kind of confused why you were there making that run at that point. Can you talk me through coming off 7 how you made that move because I know he was saying on pit road, he says, hey, he shouldn't have been there. I'm sure two people see it two different ways.

KYLE LARSON: Well, I definitely made a mistake getting into him. But yeah, he would pull me off of 7 every time, and that time I maintained, and I was outbraking him in the other laps, so I thought I could outbrake him and get all the way to his inside, but I was only able to get my nose to his numbers. Maybe not even that far, but it was close. At that point I'm already committed and on the verge of wheel hopping and locking the fronts up and I was just hoping he would leave enough room.

Like I said, I just needed to be a few feet further up, and I think I would have had position on him, but I wasn't able to get there, and yeah, he had to turn for the corner, and I was as low as I could get. Yeah, we made contact.

It was definitely my fault. Not intentional, obviously. But I made a mistake.

Q. Also, I can remember earlier in your career you would run well on road courses in qualifying and lamented about trying to put together full races, and here you've won multiple road courses, you've held off Chase Elliott, who's been as strong as anybody here recently. How have you kind of evolved, and what's helped you evolve to be the road course racer that you've become?

KYLE LARSON: Well, I think the biggest thing is just the race car, their setups. I could tell instantly that had had a different feel than I'm used to here. It had good grip. So I think that's the most -- that's the biggest thing of why now I'm racing well. I've always been able to run fast laps, and I think it's showed in the times that we've qualified on road courses. I've still been second, I think, in both of them.

And then yeah, I definitely did some studying this week and looked at how Chase kind of gets through the Bus Stop. I feel like he's got his own kind of unique style through there, so I looked at that a lot, and I felt like I was pretty good through the Bus Stop. I haven't looked at data yet, but I'd be curious to see how I was relative to the 9 car, but I felt like to everybody else I was faster and quite a bit faster through the Bus Stop.

But yeah, I don't know. Like I said earlier, I feel like I'm good -- I've been good at road courses, but I just didn't know. I was always like a seventh- to a tenth-place guy when it came to the race, but now I think that I'm in a great race car I'm able to run that aggressive pace the whole time, and my car stays with me.

Q. Denny said he's going to race you pretty hard over the final three races. Is it normal for you, or how do you race with Denny?

KYLE LARSON: Yeah, I mean, I don't know, whatever. I want everybody to race me hard.

He ran me really hard at Road America and put me in a couple bad spots to where I almost ended up in the grass or if I didn't lift I was going to send him spinning. So then I knew points was on his mind and trying to hold me back is definitely on his mind.

Yeah, it's fun racing him, and I look forward to the next few weeks and really even into the playoffs. There's still a lot of racing left, and yeah, it's going to be fun.

I'm glad there's a fun little regular season point battle, and I feel like in years past it's kind of been a blowout come the last race of the points. But yeah, to be tied with three races left is pretty cool.

Q. Denny said he's really enjoying the battle because he feels like it's keeping him fresh and he feels like every race for the last few months has been like a playoff race in terms of the intensity and trying to gain the points. Do you feel that same way?

KYLE LARSON: Yeah, no doubt. I think probably for him and I both. Say he still had an 80-point lead or something. You could get lazy and not care as much and make mistakes, whether it be make a dumb move on restart or speed on pit road, which we've both done a few weeks ago. But now it's like every point matters to get those five extra bonus points.

Yeah, I think keeping your mind strong and sharp through the regular season is important to where you don't have to just flip a switch now when it comes playoff time and who knows if you're mentally there. But I think for him and I both, we've been mentally there for a while now.

Yeah, so I think come the playoffs time, we'll just keep on doing what we've been doing, and hopefully we'll find ourselves in the Final Four.

Q. I think he said he was originally going to be your ride home but he said he was leaving you.

KYLE LARSON: Yeah, I figured. I won at Sonoma, too, and he left me. But it's fine. I'll get to fly home with the team now, and that'll be cool, and I'll get to -- I don't really think I've ever -- Nashville would be the only other time I think I won when I got to fly home with the team.

It'll be cool to get to fly home with them and celebrate a little bit.

Q. Is there anything that you can take from this race in the road course to next week's race at the road course, as well? Is there anything that translates over?

KYLE LARSON: I don't know, I haven't made a single lap there on a simulator or anything, and I'm not going to get to chance to do that this week. I don't know, I'm going to watch as much Xfinity video as I can and what other video I can just to figure out brake markers and things like that. I don't even -- I honestly don't even have the corners memorized yet.

I don't think -- as of right now there's nothing that I can take to there, but once I get laps and in practice maybe there's some corners that will be similar, but we'll just have to wait and see.

Q. Probably sounds a little silly talking about snapping a five-race winless streak, but during the five races you didn't lead very many laps, which you had been doing quite a bit, particularly when you won three in a row. Was it good to just simply get back into that rhythm that you guys seemed to have gotten yourself into when you did win three in a row?

KYLE LARSON: Yeah, definitely. We haven't won a stage in a while, and we hadn't won or led many laps. Aside from Pocono when we blew that tire, we haven't really contended much.

Cool to be here and contend I felt like all race long. I felt like if I did some things right in the first stage I could have got another playoff point, but I think we've got to get another week in to see if this is some new momentum or anything like that.

Yeah, it was definitely fun today, and anytime you can win, which I've been doing a lot of, even in the dirt stuff, it goes a long way.

Q. When it comes to the playoffs, have you even started thinking about the playoffs or do you worry about the playoffs after Daytona? What's the mindset of the 5 team right now?

KYLE LARSON: I mean, I've been worried about the playoffs all season long. Every stage I'm thinking about it, every race win I'm thinking about it. I want to just keep racking up those points because I think it was Harvick last year, he had a bunch of points, playoff points, bonus points, and he still missed the Final Four.

You still have to execute, but if you can gain points, it'll make your life a little bit easier. Great to get another five points today, and hopefully we can keep winning and keep stacking them up.

Q. Not losing sleep over it yet, are you?

KYLE LARSON: I race way too much to really worry about the playoffs yet, but no, I don't lose sleep over anything really, other than just my kids waking up too early or something like that.

Q. They put a nice picture out on Twitter after you won.

KYLE LARSON: Yeah, Owen is racing at Mountain Creek tonight. Bummer that I'm not there, but hopefully he can get a win.