Denny Hamlin recognizes Kyle Larson has a leg up in the chase for the NASCAR Cup Series title by virtue of his victory at Las Vegas.
With his win, Larson punched his ticket to the Championship 4, with three races remaining in the Round of 8. Afterwards, Hamlin took to his Actions Detrimental podcast, where he elaborated on how Larson’s two-week buffer will work to his advantage.
“What that means when some says, and you’ll see it a lot this week, Larson’s got an advantage. They’ll talk about Larson having an advantage because he can now shift his resources and thoughts into Phoenix,” Hamlin said. “What that basically means is that he’s going to spend extra time, instead of doing a bunch of work for Homestead, and meeting with his crew chief about Homestead this, Homestead that, how can we do this, what’s our strategy — they’ll shift their focus into, what do we need to do to run well and win at Phoenix? You know, while it’s a very, very small advantage, it is still an advantage.
“He’s not having to hyper-focus hours and hours and hours on, what’s our strategy for this race or that race, or Martinsville. What are we going to do there? Do we need to run extra sim time? It’s not historically been a great track for him. He can forget all that. Pass that up, and go right to Phoenix, and apply that extra time.”
When it comes to NASCAR, every little advantage can make a gigantic difference. Kyle Larson was already one of the favorites to win the title in 2023, but Denny Hamlin realizes that the Hendrick Motorsports star may have the best shot moving forward now.
More on Kyle Larson, victory at Las Vegas
Moreover, three of the last six champions have won the opening race of the Round of 8. That includes Kyle Larson during his 2021 championship run. He won at Texas and then went on to win at Phoenix in convincing fashion.
As for anyone who thinks Larson is going to sit back for two weeks? Think again. Homestead-Miami is one of Larson’s favorite tracks. He can run the wall high and just flat-outrun everyone else on the track.
In that 2021 run, Larson let it all out to close the Round of 12 and to start the Round of 8. He went and won three straight races from the Roval to Texas to Kansas. It’s possible that we could see Larson go back-to-back as the Cup Series heads to Miami in a week. Let’s not forget, he won at Martinsville this year, too.
In this Next Gen era, back-to-back wins are rare. It’s incredibly difficult to be that consistent week to week. Kyle Larson will try to join William Byron, Kevin Harvick, and Chris Buescher as the only drivers to win back-to-back races in the Next Gen era.
On3’s Jonathan Howard contributed to this article.