“It Looks Super Bad”: Kyle Larson’s Honest Self-Assessment Ahead of the Daytona 500

For someone as talented, as highly regarded as Kyle Larson, it’s a shame that he hasn’t won NASCAR’s biggest race, the Daytona 500 yet. And there’s also this notion that Larson isn’t that good of a superspeedway racer. Well, this year, Larson wants to change both of those things.

Starting off with the notion of him not being a good superspeedway racer, Larson took up his case and emphasized that while he isn’t the best or the luckiest on plate tracks, he has certainly improved from before.

“On paper, it looks obviously super bad. I would say in the Ganassi days, I was a really, really bad superspeedway racer. But I feel like since joining Hendrick, when you really watch the film, I’m up in the top 6 to 8 in the final 10 laps most times,” he said ahead of the Daytona 500. “And then I just caught in that final crash, and don’t finish where you need to, or get a DNF or whatever.”

“I think we look like we’re the worst but really, we aren’t really as bad as we look.”

Kyle Larson has one top-5 in 41 drafting track starts. He told me I didn’t need to remind him of the stat. What he said about those results. pic.twitter.com/kziEdu3cJ0

— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) February 17, 2024

Kyle Larson feels he’s not far away from winning the Daytona 500

As for what Kyle Larson needs to do to win the Daytona 500, he recently claimed he just needs to make that one “small decision” at the right time to make the right move to get on the right side of the victory lane.

“It’s like if I can just – I don’t know – just kind of at times be more patient but at times I think you need to be more aggressive as well,” he said as per Motorsport. “I think there’s times where I’m, like, half a step behind.”

Larson also emphasized that he wants to win the 500 “really bad”, just as everyone else on the grid. But what winning the Great American Race would do to his legacy wasn’t lost on Larson. “I’ve always accomplished a lot of good things in my career. I’m not anywhere close to being done,” he claimed.

So heading into the main event, Kyle Larson is pumped for the Daytona 500, adding that he loves trying to win it, that he loves the big races, and that it doesn’t get any bigger than the Daytona 500.