Kevin Harvick offers caution for Kyle Larson after two-straight Top 5 finishes

It’s been a bit since the last win for Kyle Larson. However, he’s putting together some stronger performances, and that was evident during this past weekend’s trip to Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Kevin Harvick watched as the Hendrick Motorsports star notched a runner-up finish. On the latest episode of Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour, the namesake explained why the last two weeks have been a good sign for the No. 5 Chevrolet team, and how they’re heading in the right direction.

“I think that they’re back on track,” Harvick stated. “I think that it’s a lot like we saw last year. I don’t think they have the speed advantage like we saw at the beginning the year last year, or the beginning of the year this year. I think that, for whatever reason, their cars are always better prepared at the beginning of the season. They’re still well prepared at the end of the year, but they don’t have that advantage that it seems like they have to start the season, with the speed that they seem to have.

“So, I think that’s as good as Larson has run in a while, and he was a contender all day. They had a good strategy, and all of those things. That’s a great team. I mean, Cliff [Daniels] and all of those guys who work on Larson’s car do a great job. So, they’ve righted the ship, but can they do it when it counts.”

As Harvick alluded to, it was an impressive performance in the Brickyard 400 for Larson. He just couldn’t get by Bubba Wallace on the final two restarts. The Hendrick Motorsports star even told Christopher DeHarde of The Indy Star that he was praying Wallace would run out of gas, but it simply didn’t happen.

“I don’t really know their strategy and then our team’s trying to piece it together the best that they can,” Larson stated. “So it’s all just guesstimation. Even then, they’re probably guesstimating as well, so I was praying that he’d run out of fuel, but I also didn’t want to run out of fuel myself, either. So it is what it is.”

Regardless, a second place finish is nothing to scoff at for Kyle Larson. As the Cup Series moves to Iowa this weekend, he’ll be hoping to rise above and take his fourth checkered flag of the season. For most drivers, that’s an all-time season — for the No. 5 Chevrolet wheelman, it’s expected.