Kyle Larson recently weighed in on the New Hampshire dust-up between Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs, siding with his longtime rival-turned-frenemy, Hamlin. Having lived through his own share of tense moments with teammates, Larson understood where the No. 11 driver was coming from.
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Larson and Chase Elliott have tangled more than once, even this season, most notably at Iowa Speedway in early August 2025. Their cars banged doors on multiple restarts, leaving Larson fuming on the radio. But afterward, both downplayed any friction, emphasizing that whatever happened on track stayed there, and their relationship at Hendrick Motorsports remained intact.
While Larson and Elliott worked things out on their own, Hamlin called for leadership intervention. He wanted teams to remind drivers of how playoff and non-playoff teammates should approach each other on the track.
Larson addressed the issue directly. “Yeah, I think you’re always just looking out for what you can do to make things a little bit easier on your teammates. Thankfully for me, TVs probably don’t even see the teamwork that happens.”
He pointed to a recent example with Alex Bowman. At the end of a stage, Bowman let Larson pass multiple times, but was fading. Bowman could have easily driven back around him, yet chose to stay tucked in line.
“So it’s just little things like that where I think where Denny (Hamlin) was probably expecting that, as every team who has multiple cars, has had a conversation of those expectations. So I could see Denny’s frustration, for sure. And yeah, I’m sure they had a lot of talks this week, so I would expect it to be much better.”
Asked if a non-playoff driver should yield to a playoff teammate, Larson was firm. “At that point in the race, yeah. I mean, it was stage one, stage two, maybe.”
But, according to him, when it comes to the final laps, he drew a hard line. In his eyes, no one should be expected to surrender a chance at victory, no matter the circumstances. Still, if the battle unfolds mid-pack in a stage, he believes the expectation of giving ground should stand.
