Kevin Harvick Shares Concerning Verdict on “Hit or Miss” William Byron and Kyle Larson’s Title Chances

The NASCAR Cup garage is at Darlington this week for the first playoff race of the 2025 season. Hendrick Motorsports duo of Kyle Larson and regular season William Byron, with 32 bonus points to their name, are the drivers watch out for.  But 2014 Bill France Cup winner Kevin Harvick has some concerns about the first and second ranked players in the championship table.

In the latest episode of the Happy Hour podcast, Kevin Harvick highlighted that HMS drivers Kyle Larson and William Byron are in a concerning situation, despite the fact that both of them started the season pretty strong, with the No:5 Chevy driver being the better of the two. But the 2021 champion isn’t on the same superior level he was earlier in the year.

I still look at the playoff standings and I look at Larson and Byron concerned because they started the year off so well. More for Larson. He’s had some decent finishes lately but not that ground-pounding speed that he had at the beginning of the year.

Kevin Harvick said via Happy Hour podcast.

The No:24 Chevy driver, Byron, on the other hand has been having multiple hit and miss races recently, despite having solid speed. They are more vulnerable to making mistakes on the track and well as on the pit-road. Unless the duo work on perfecting their execution, 2025 might become another disappointing season for HMS.

Byron’s been hit or miss. They’ve continued to have speed. Made some mistakes. And this is going to come down to mistakes, right? It’s going to come down to mistakes on pit road, it’s going to come down to wrecks, it’s going to come down to who makes less mistakes.

Kevin Harvick added.

Kevin Harvick shares his thoughts on Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin’s chances

In the same conversation, Kevin Harvick shared his thoughts on the 3ed, and 5^th ranked driver, Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell. The JGR driver have won multiple races but has had a concerning streak that puts doubt on Harvick’s mind. Bell being the championship pick of Harvick from the start of the season concerns him more.

When I look at a Christopher Bell, for instance, right there, can they just show up and put together 10 weeks? I hope so, that was my championship pick. At the beginning of the year I think they can do it but it’s so hard to just show back up and put yourself in a position for 10 weeks and start to try to have a different mindset…

Kevin Harvick said.

Further talking about the point, the veteran racer admitted that there are flows as inconsistencies both Bell, as well as Hamlin, who is desperate for maiden career championship has to address before the playoffs. They have to execute perfectly in all ten races to have a shot at the title this season, considering how competitive the last-16 is.

I know that they don’t intentionally do that, but you can see the flaws in what they do from the inconsistency of things happening. It’ll be interesting… You look at Denny in third right there, is this the year that he can break the playoff curse and put together 10 weeks?

Kevin Harvick added.

Regardless of the concerns, when the regular season form is factored in, these are the four driver that are solid contenders for the championships. It would be interesting to see if they will make it into the final four, or Team Penske would yet again produce another clutch run as they have been doing since the start of Next-Gen era.

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