Tensions ran high between Hendrick Motorsports teammates at Iowa, as Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott traded paint during a hard-fought Iowa Corn 350. Though neither driver publicly addressed the on-track friction, veteran crew chief and analyst Steve Letarte dismissed it as part of the natural ebb and flow of intense competition that Rick Hendrick might need to worry about.
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Larson rolled off third after a strong qualifying effort and wrapped up a caution-free Stage 1 in sixth. But the issue began on a Stage 2 restart when Elliott clipped Larson’s left-front tire while going three-wide, with Larson up top and Chase Briscoe squeezed to the inside. The contact sent Larson skating sideways, yet he gathered it up with good car control.
Initially quiet, Larson soon radioed that the car’s handling had taken a hit. Just 20 laps later, the Hendrick teammates clashed again on a restart, leaning on each other while fighting for the same sliver of real estate in the middle lane.
Then came the third and final flashpoint: contact with Christopher Bell left Larson’s car sliding up the track, narrowly avoiding the wall. That was the breaking point for the 2021 champion, who erupted on the radio.
“How much f***ing room do I have to leave people? … I’ve been quiet for 45 minutes… I’ve been trying to be a good teammate, [and] a good competitor, and it hasn’t gotten me anywhere for the last f***ing hour,” Larson ranted.
Despite the heated dealings, Letarte waved off any long-term concern. Speaking on Inside the Race, he explained that fans tune in to watch drivers fight for every inch, not tiptoe around teammates.
He said, “Well, this is why Jeff Gordon is the perfect co-chairman of the organization. Because he has seen it nearly get torn apart when him and Jimmie Johnson were disagreeing and when they run into each other in Texas, somebody’s upset, there’s chirping on the radio.
“In my opinion, actually this is what makes the organization great because I don’t think that Rick or Jeff or Chad Knaus would allow this beating and banging and pushing and shoving to be more than great racing.”
He stressed that internal friction only matters if it lingers beyond the Monday-to-Wednesday debriefs, saying, “And I think it’s okay that they hit each other, it’s okay that they are pissed at each other.
“In the near term, it’s not okay if it continues past the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday meeting because that’s when you build an organization of winners. You can’t have this many wins without… When you start racing people like they are your teammates, you’re not going to go forward.”
Vice-President of Competition Chad Knaus echoed the sentiment and reached out to lift Larson’s spirits after his frustrating day. He told Frontstretch that, despite the No. 5 finishing 28th, he was proud of Larson’s effort.
“Kyle did great. It’s not the finish that we wanted, of course, but [he] was up there battling for the lead,” Knaus said. He acknowledged that Larson’s finish fell short of the team’s expectations, yet expressed full confidence in the driver. Still, he observed that short-track racing often breeds exactly this kind of hard-nosed, elbows-out competition.
