Kyle Larson Brands Denny Hamlin as the Driver to Beat at Las Vegas

The NASCAR Cup Series race last Sunday at Kansas saw Kyle Larson producing a dominant run to upset the Toyota’s and increase his championship lead from one to 26 points. Of he can continues the form and dominate Denny Hamlin and co, in the coming weeks that title would be his to lose.

This weekend the garage is at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the next race and the No:5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevy driver expects Denny Hamlin, alongside his fellow Joe Gibbs Racing driver, to be the favorite for the weekend. The No:11 Toyota Camry does have the raw pace advantage.

Yeah, I mean, I think it’s gonna be a lot of the same faces for sure up front. But I would say they’re very, very similar. But I would still point to Denny as potentially being the favorite just based off of him winning the last two times there and just the raw speed that he had in his car at those races compared to the field.

Kyle Larson said.

Later in the same conversation, Kyle Larson pointed out that the Joe Gibbs Racing cars do have some pace advantage in the first two turns and that will help them be better offensively. But the HMS driver pointed out that they will have their fair shot, as the Chevy’s have become much better compared to the start of the season.

I feel like the Gibbs cars get over the bumps through one and two a little bit better than we do. And so, they can carry a bit more speed and kind of be on offense a little bit better. But I do believe we have improved our car, and compared to our last two trips there. So that’s where I don’t really know how we’ll stack up to the Gibbs cars.

Kyle Larson added via Dale Jr. Download.

Team Penske can also be a major challenge for Kyle Larson

In the same conversation, the veteran racer also talked about the challenge posed by the Team Penske duo of Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney. They have cracked the code to succeed in the 1.5 miles track and they will have a strong shot at win this week.

The Penske cars, I would say Vegas is typically their better intermediate. And with them being really good at Kansas last week, that was a little bit surprising, I think, to all of us. So, I would look at them as being even more of a contender this weekend.

Kyle Larson said.

This make the race week more competitive than it has ever been in the 2026 season, as at the start of the year Ford and Chevy had a pace deficit to the Toyota’s. This makes the championship more exciting with just six more races left in the season.

But yeah, it’s been fun. I feel like the field is a bit more equal. But we’ll see. There are still six races to go. And a lot of teams are still in this, even though it may not seem that way right now.

Kyle Larson added.

The comments from the defending champion are on point and shows how the new chase format has made racing more entertaining. It would be interesting to see how everything is going to playout for the star driver in the upcoming days.

Also Read: “Worse Now Than It Was Then!” Tony Stewart Exposes Major Issue with Current Generation of NASCAR Cars