Kyle Larson Admits Getting Sick of Losing to Denny Hamlin: “That Would Suck”

Kyle Larson edged out RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher by 0.001 seconds to win Sunday’s Cup Series race in Kansas. Speaking to the press in the aftermath, he admitted that he would still feel happy had it been Buescher who’d won the race and not him. But does that mean he would’ve been okay had it been a different driver in Buescher’s place? No. Particularly, not if it was Denny Hamlin.

The question that was put in front of the Hendrick driver was if he saw his relationship with Buescher transcending to be similar to the close friendship that Ricky Craven and Kurt Busch developed after their iconic 0.002 second margin finish in 2003, Darlington. Larson replied that he had huge respect for Buescher’s talent and that he would still be happy if he’d lost out to him.

Continuing to reveal his no-love for Denny Hamlin, he said, “But, say, me and Denny come down to the finish like that and he edges me out by a thousandth [of a second], I’d been pissed off. Just cuz I finished second to him so many times and I would hate to probably be like, ‘Oh the Larson-Hamlin finish that… Oh, Hamlin beat him again.’ That would suck.” 

He reiterated that things were different between him and Buescher and that he would be cool if their roles had been reversed. The RFK Racing star does not hold any ill in his heart towards Larson as well. He made his feelings clear on his X handle by waving the white flag at both Larson and Hamlin for racing him clean and fair.

Larson believes that the Ricky Craven-Kurt Busch finish was cooler than the one on Sunday

Racing in Darlington back in ‘03, Craven and Kusch were engaged in a tough 1-2 battle. Changing positions between them multiple times in the final laps, they finished the race with just 0.002 seconds separating each other. Post-race analysis confirmed that Craven had taken the flag first. Remembering the result, Larson told the press that the yesteryear race was much “cooler” than the one on Sunday.

He said, “Craven and Kurt was in my opinion way cooler than… That was a battle. The last however many laps and came down to you know photo finish. This [Sunday] was still cool and hopefully it can hang on for a long time.”

The driver appeared pretty pleased with himself for producing a result narrower than the icons did. In all possibility, he is already dreaming of another similar result when NASCAR heads to Darlington the coming weekend.