Hendrick Motorsports star Kyle Larson showed a lot of grit and determination during the Cup Series race in Las Vegas on Sunday. He secured an 11th-place finish after what was a disastrous green flag outing to the pit road during Lap 125.
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The mistake put him nearly two laps down but he was somehow able to recover from the disadvantage. Here’s a brief breakdown of what happened during the stop.
Larson had come to the road for a four-tire change. Midway through the process, the No. 5 crew froze because the rear tire carrier wasn’t sure if the right-rear wheel was secure enough.
He alerted crew chief Cliff Daniels, and the crew went back to the right side, suspending their work on the left. Through all the confusion, the left-rear tire was left unchanged, forcing Larson to come back to the road.
The extra trip is what ended up being the most expensive affair. Daniels was no doubt hard on his team behind the scenes. But he backed them in front of the cameras and detailed, “It’s a very awkward circumstance because, in that moment, I have to call out and flag that we do have an issue on the right rear; we’re halfway through our left-side operation.”
“The changer’s second-guessing themselves in what they needed to finish for the left-side operation and clean that up. Ultimately, we had a new tire put on the left-front and we did not get a new tire put on the left-rear.” He believes that his guys are now smarter and won’t commit such mistakes in the future now that they’ve learned from it.
Larson believes that it was a singular mishap
Larson fought extremely hard to earn the 11th-place finish. He got a free pass after Ty Gibbs, who sped on the pit road, spun out during the final caution. The No. 5 driver pitted another time before the finish to refuel his car and ultimately grabbed some crucial benefits out of his day.
Despite the churner that his team put him into, he isn’t disappointed in them. He said, “They’ve won me a lot of races, so I think that’s what helped me stay calm. I make a lot more mistakes than the rest of our team does. That allows me to be calm. It was a bit of a mess, but we will assess it, learn from it and it will never happen again, I know that.”
He now sits 35 points above the elimination line. Joey Logano won the race and secured himself a nice Championship 4 seat. It is the common expectation that Larson will soon follow him into that door.
