11 races into the 2024 season, Kyle Larson leads the regular season standings on the back of an incredibly consistent run. By most analysts’ predictions, the HMS driver is set to make a deep run for the NASCAR Cup title this year. And if Larson’s 2024 stats are compared to his championship-winning season in 2021, it won’t be a stretch to say that he is better placed at this point to take the title.
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At the same junction in 2021, Larson had one win, four top-5s, and six top-10s compared to one win, five top-5s, and top-10s this season, with his win coming at Las Vegas both times. The #5 driver, who has a better average finish this year(11.7 in 2024 vs 15 in 2021), is ahead of Martin Truex Jr. at the top of the standings while at the same time in 2021, he was 9th.
Even though much of the #5 team has stayed the same from that time, expecting a similar run would be a tough ask, the biggest reason being the Next Gen car. After the 14th race in 2021, Yung Money went on a tear, winning three races on the trot at Charlotte (which will be part of his Indy Double Duty this year), Sonoma, and Nashville. Winning consecutive races, let alone three, has proven to be nearly impossible in the Next Gen car.
Larson repeated the sequence in the playoffs that year, winning five of the 10 post-season races, including the Championship race at Phoenix. This kind of run is unimaginable now, with the exponential increase in parity brought in by the new car.
So far, 2024 has been a story of Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racings’ dominance, with Larson(1), Denny Hamlin(3), William Byron(3), Chase Elliott(1), and Christopher Bell(1) accounting for 9 out of the 11 wins. But like 2022 and 2023 proved, despite starting slowly in the first half, Ford, and Team Penske in particular have much to say toward the business end of the season.
Any time he takes the car, in any format, Kyle Larson is an immediate favorite, but to win a Cup title, raw speed and skill can only take you too far. As the last two seasons have shown, with this car, it is execution that matters, and that is the one thing Larson and his team need to work on come playoff time.
