Kyle Larson Laments Poor Performance at Michigan, Admits HMS Chevy ‘Wasn’t Fast Enough’

Hendrick Motorsports Kyle Larson shared his disappointment after missing out on yet another win at Michigan International Speedway.

Kyle Larson Laments Poor Performance at Michigan, Admits HMS Chevy ‘Wasn’t Fast Enough’

Kyle Larson at Darlington (Via IMAGO)

Since the Coke 600-Indy 500 double weekend, Kyle Larson hasn’t been the dominant force he has been the whole season. Following the double duty failure, he missed out on wins at Charlotte and Nashville despite having the fastest car. His non-NASCAR commitments went the same way, as he backed down from making Supercar debut recently and had a big World of Outlaws race wreck before the race week.

The bad luck seems to have followed him to Michigan International Speedway this Sunday, as Kyle Larson failed to lead a single and barely pulled off a top 5 finish, in a No:5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevy that was fast enough to beat Denny Hamlin in the No:11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. The veteran lamented about this on his post-race interview.

The 2021 Cup Series champion admitted that days like the Michigan weekend is something as a racer he hates and then went onto highlight how his team still delivered for him in the challenging moment. He isn’t still over the Charlotte loss and then boldly claimed that he still made the most of his car this week as well as the week before.

Days like today aren’t the most fun, but they feel really good, too. Proud of the whole team. Wish we could have got a win for Chevrolet, but we’ll try again next year. Days like last week and this week were very similar. We weren’t fast on speed, but made the most out of it last week and today.

Kyle Larson said in his post-race interview (NBC Sports).

Further talking about the point, he admitted that he believed his crew gave him a shot at the win on Sunday and they remain strong during the adverse moment, to pull off a good finish in a day where he was just stuck in the lower top 10s. But he sees some positive from the performance and believes he has the momentum on his side to get back to being consistent.

For a point of that last run, I thought we might have a shot to win. So, it just says a lot about the team and how really strong we’ve stayed through some bits of adversity. Hopefully, we can just run better from now and run in the top five all day.

Kyle Larson added.

Kyle Larson is happy finish the race strong amidst the struggle

Earlier talking about the race, Kyle Larson admitted that he lost his balance during the race when he was no anger able to maintain the gap to the front runners during the race, while running 80 percent and this came to bite him at the end.  

Kyle Larson (via McLaren)
Kyle Larson (via McLaren)

I thought early I was surprised running 75-80 percent; I could just kind of maintain the gap. Then those other guys started coming, and my balance was already shot by then anyway. I didn’t think I had a chance to push even if I wanted.

Kyle Larson said.

But still he was able to secure his 9th top 5 from the 15 races so far this season, and he is glad to do that considering it wasn’t a pretty day. This gives the team and the crew chief more hope going into the next race week.

I ran that whole last run not hitting wide open more than 2-3 seconds. Just glad to make it. It was not a pretty day. We weren’t very fast, but we were able to get a top five.

Kyle Larson added.

The next and 16th race of the 2025 season will be hosted at Mexico City, the first international race in the series in a long-time. This puts a lot of pressure on the teams and drivers as they have to produce an entertaining race for one of the most passionate racing fans in the world.

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