Despite what the championship standings may tell you about Kyle Busch’s season so far, the real picture behind the team seems to be a bit different. Busch has gone on to win three races this season and many have called it to be his redemption year, considering the fact that just last year his future in the sport seemed uncertain.
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Behind the scenes, the team is cautious though. Recently, Busch’s crew chief, Randall Burnett, candidly expressed that the #8 team isn’t a championship-contending team at the moment. He argued how the team has not been consistent with their performances so far and there is still a lot of work to be done to get Busch into the championship four later at Phoenix.
Kyle Busch’s crew chief doesn’t think they are a championship team at the moment
Ahead of the weekend, Burnett stated, “We don’t have the consistency on a weekly basis that I think we need to be a championship team right now. We’re working on that, discussing how to do things better to be a little more consistent and working to get our short track package better.”
“Then we’ve got to clean up some execution things and make less mistakes. Make our days less eventful at times. I feel like we’ve had a lot of really good speed at a lot of places but we’ve kind of put ourselves behind the eight ball, said Burnett.
He added, “In the playoffs, you have to be consistent, you have to be able to score stage points, and you have to be able to compete for wins. And we do that but probably not consistently enough at this point.”
How has the season been for Kyle Busch so far?
The start of the season had been fantastic for the Las Vegas native. His first win came in the second race of the regular season at Fontana. Although he did have a shot at winning the Daytona 500 a week prior to that, luck was not on his side and he wrecked out near the end of the race.
The two-time Cup Series champion’s second and third wins came at Talladega and Gateway respectively. At one point he was in the top half of the leaderboards as well. But as the season progressed, the team seemed to lack consistency, and Busch would either wreck out or have a horrible day on the racetrack, often finishing outside of the top 20s.
Even though he is well secured in the playoffs, going into the postseason, Busch sits 9th in the regular season points standings, and fourth in the playoff standings. It is still impressive, but as per Burnett, if the team continues to lack consistent finishes, things could get harder for him when the playoffs get underway.
