“I Didn’t Have Any Space”: Kyle Larson Hopes Chase Elliott Has a Second Thought After On-Track Tantrum at Kansas

Even though there hasn’t been much of it lately, there is a bit of a rivalry between Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson. Over the years, we’ve seen some glimpses of it, with some incidents on the track in which one of the drivers made a questionable move and such. But there hasn’t been much drama or recurring drama between the two.

However, there was an incident at Kansas between Larson and Elliott that once again pointed to the rivalry between them.

It happened during a late pit stop and as the #5 and the #9 were coming off of pit road, Larson seemingly got into Elliott, because of which, NASCAR’s most popular driver decided to ‘send a message’ to his teammate. But what really happened, or why Larson had to run into Elliott wasn’t out of malice, but out of necessity.

Kyle Larson hopes Chase Elliott understands why he had to do what he did

During a post-race interview, Larson explained the incident between him and Elliott as he revealed that it was the presence of a third car, that of Brad Keselowski, that led to him running into his teammate. He said, “From my vantage point, I knew we were three-wide leaving and I didn’t know at the time, the #6 was pitting in front of us. I’m trying to leave as much as space as I can. He’s coming out of the lane quickly because the #6 wants to slow us down so I tried to leave as much as space as I could.”

“Obviously, I made contact with him but I felt like if I didn’t, I was gonna clobber the #6 in the right front. I thought the safest bet for all of us was to squeeze out a little bit. So, I understand why he’s mad or was mad in the moment.”

“I hope when he sees the replay he understands I didn’t have any space or not much, just inches. Just a bummer but I’m glad neither of us got tore up there and we got a good finish.”

Elliott had a very short and simple reaction to his actions against Larson

It’s perhaps unlikely that as Larson hoped Elliott would understand his move on the pit road exit was more necessary than avoidable, Elliott’s comments didn’t reflect as such. In his post-race interview, when the #9 driver was confronted with the question of whether he was trying to send a message to his teammate with his aggressive gesture afterward, Elliott had a very short and simple response.

“There was no message. No,” he said.

So it remains to be seen, going into Bristol, whether we’ll see more of Elliott vs. Larson on the track or if this time around too, this incident would come to an end as just another glimpse into their rivalry.