Dale Earnhardt Jr. highlights issues for Kyle Larson, makes prediction

Kyle Larson secured a top-five finish for the first time since Michigan this past weekend at Dover. It was a potential return to form for him, Dale Earnhardt Jr. said.

Earnhardt spent a lengthy segment on the Dale Jr. Download breaking down Larson’s recent form, which probably hasn’t been up to his normal standard. Before Sunday, Larson hadn’t finished in the top 10 since Pocono, nearly a month earlier.

“Kyle Larson this past weekend looked like he was kind of on his way back to the standard that I believe he sets for himself,” Earnhardt said. “Been a rough summer and they’ve had some things that have kind of knocked him out of decent results. Then when they do finish a race they just kind of don’t look like themselves.”

But Larson was competitive at Dover from start to finish. He put himself in the mix to be in it on a late overtime restart. He ultimately finished in fourth.

“This weekend I thought was a great time for Larson to kind of get back to doing what he does best,” Earnhardt said. “Looked like for a while he struggled like everybody else with dirty air trying to work his way through the field. But eventually car had pretty decent speed.”

There’s one advanced metric that Earnhardt pointed to as evidence that Larson is starting to get back in the groove. He pointed to some advanced analytics provided by NASCAR Insights.

Those show Kyle Larson might just be rounding back into form. Earnhardt explained.

“NASCAR Insights has these averages that we look at, and there’s a couple parameters,” he said. “Passing, defense, speed, restarts, pit crew. And we get these insights spit out to us after every race, and you’ll get a season average after that race and you’ll also get the insights for that specific event. But for passing, Larson’s season average he was in the top five and it has dropped down to 12th overall. And I think in the summer that’s kind of when this has happened.

“At Dover he was No. 1. And I feel like that’s a sign to me that they are regrouping and getting back to the basics and Indy might be the race where he goes out there and jams the flag in the logo in the middle of the field and says, ‘Hey, I’m back and I’m ready to win this championship.'”

Earnhardt also pointed to another element of Larson’s schedule that he thinks caused things to get a little out of whack: The Indianapolis 500 double attempt.

Sure, it was the second year doing it and thus perhaps not as much of a surprise. But this year didn’t go as well as last year did — and even that one was a bit of a mess.

“I feel like trying to do the double this year and the struggle that he had with that and logistics and travel, interviews and photo shoots, all the off-track responsibilities required by sponsors and extra partners that are involved in that, all of those things didn’t go as well or as easy or as smooth as he had hoped,” Earnhardt said. “And I think that that kind of knocked him off his perch and, to your point, the schedule wouldn’t allow him to find some consistency to be able to gain the confidence and get the team back to where it needs to be, everybody feeling good about everything.”

Kyle Larson just hasn’t been in peak performance mode of late. But he might be turning into a portion of the schedule that will lend itself to just that in the coming weeks.

“Over the last handful of weeks I’m sure that they’ve all kind of been questioning, ‘Are we doing everything we need to do? What should we do? Should we change this? Should we flip this over? What can I do?’ Everybody’s looking inward,” Earnhardt said. “I feel like talking to the team and kind of understanding their mindset they’ve decided not to panic. Get back to the basics. Get back to running. Get in the part of the schedule where they might can find some peace of mind or some … like Dover’s pretty straightforward. Indy will be too. Back to the ovals.

“Let’s get back to where we know we can be more in control of our destiny. And I think if the summer was full of ovals, they would have probably regained their form quicker. But it’s clunky, weird. Schedule’s bad. It’s different.”