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Kyle Larson admits No. 5 team was off at Phoenix: 'We’re never good here'

Meby: Nick Geddes8 hours agoNickGeddesNews

Kyle Larson and the No. 5 team secured a third-place finish in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway. For Larson, it was his third consecutive third-place finish and fourth straight top-five at the 1-mile oval.

Larson, however, wasn’t satisfied with his team’s performance on Sunday. He “felt like we might not even be a top-15 car,” and wasn’t surprised that they weren’t to the level of Ryan Blaney and Christopher Bell among others.

“I was not happy to start the race. Really not happy all weekend,” Larson said, via Dustin Albino of Jayski. “Just proud of the team. We definitely know how to fight to get a good finish here at Phoenix. We do it every time. We’re never good here. It’s not a surprise that we weren’t great. We still come up with a third like we typically do here. It took a lot of fight.”

Kyle Larson: ‘We just need to be a lot better’

Larson finished 13th in the opening stage before rallying to finish ninth in Stage 2 to earn a pair of stage points. He managed to avoid the chaos — as Phoenix tied a track record with 12 cautions — and put himself in the top-five for much of the third and final stage. It was a good points day for Larson and he was proud of the way they battled throughout the race.

That being said, Hendrick Motorsports didn’t have the same speed as their main competitors in Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske, who combined to lead 294-of-312 laps. Phoenix, while no longer the site of the championship race, is on the schedule for the 10-race Chase.

A third-place finish at Phoenix this past November was good enough for Larson to capture his second Cup Series championship. This season, the result of that one race won’t decide the champion. It will, though, be an important race and Larson feels they need to be far better come October than they were Sunday.

“We just need to be a lot better,” Larson said. “Aside from strategy and pit road, we never really have a shot here at Phoenix. We’ll just keep working hard on hitting the setup to feel like we can be a contender here from start to finish.”