Humbled Kyle Larson Lets Slip His Chicago Cup Series Upper Hand Moments After SVG ‘Playing With Him’

With his Loop 110 victory in Chicago, Shane van Gisbergen has clinched his third consecutive road-course win in the series and his second race win on the 2.2-mile downtown Chicago street circuit. But his biggest challenge came from the man who started right behind him in P2, double-header aspirant Kyle Larson.

The duo gave fans an exciting international showdown on the front row, and things got even more interesting when JGR’s Double Duty driver Ty Gibbs muscled his way between SVG and Larson in the final stage, securing a hard-fought P2. From the start, many believed these heavyweights threatened this Xfinity field, and they were right.

Gibbs & Larson finishing 2nd and 3rd consecutively stepping down from the Cup Series proves exactly that. Yet, the Xfinity race winner, about to also make an appearance at the Cup race, might have given Larson some valuable information. The kind that could help the Hendrick driver overcome his Kiwi challenge during their rematch in Sunday’s main event.

Kyle Larson learns from the road course master

Larson & Shane van Gisbergen traded the lead 5 times in their countless battles on the streets of Chicago. If not for mid-race pit strategies, the duo would’ve likely swept both stages on the front row & the final stage of Loop 110. From the beginning, Larson, one of the best oval racers on the planet, was the perfect adversary for SVG, one of the best road racers on the planet. Considering the streets are well-known as van Gisbergen’s preferred domain, Larson finishing only 2.104 seconds behind in P3 isn’t all that bad.

After all, even Yung Money admitted that he “was just having a blast early,”  talking to Kim Coon of NBC in his post-race interview. But when shifting his focus to finishing behind Shane van Gisbergen, Larson painted his self-portrait with a true champion’s humility. “He (SVG) was obviously way faster… I think he was having fun just playing with me,” noted Rick Hendrick’s part-time #17 Xfinity driver.

But Larson also opines that he “wanted to use this race to learn…” He was open to addressing his knowledge attained after losing against a better opponent, as he stated, “I wanted to take the first opportunity I got to battle him. You know, we were gonna give each other space because early on but you just never know when the race plays out. If I am gonna have a chance to battle him and learn racecraft stuff, so that was big on my agenda and I felt like I learned quite a bit battling him and you’re creating different angles and all that. So yeah, I think today was a success. Obviously, we would like to win but our car just wasn’t quite as good as his.”

But what exactly did Kyle Larson learn from Shane van Gisbergen’s phenomenal second-tier run on Saturday? “He could just exit Turn 5 just way smoother than me. I just was bouncing so aggressively. I couldn’t accelerate. And then same through like Turn 9, I just couldn’t carry the speed that he could. If I carry just a little bit too much which was never even close to how much speed he was turning or pulling through there. I would just sheer and get loose… That kind of carries all the way to (Turn) 11,” explained the 2021 Cup champ. It appears, if not before the Xfinity race, Larson is certainly ready to combat van Gisbergen tomorrow with a better understanding of the perceivable motions

As Coon wound up her next question to Kyle Larson, he concluded his initial answer by declaring that this doubleheader “definitely benefited” him. And that the extra track time will potentially help his Cup run on Sunday, which is to be contested over 25 extra laps than the Loop 110. But owing to Larson’s heightened optimism, the rest of the field better watch out for that #5 car at the Grant Park 165.

A #5-branded redemption in Sunday’s main event?

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Larson will be starting his race from the front on Sunday. He beat Ty Gibbs only by about one-hundredth of a second to secure the pole for the second annual Chicago Street Race. Michael McDowell and Tyler Reddick will be on the row behind them. But most surprisingly, contrary to SVG’s pole-winning fortunes at Xfinity Chicago, Kaulig Racing’s #16 Cup car will start its Grant Park 165 from the fifth position.

Last year, SVG rolled off the grid in P3, and Larson did so in P7. It is safe to say, this year is a definitive improvement for Larson. And after competing neck and neck against the Xfinity Series’ best recent road course racer, he’s running high on optimism to derail the SVG hype train with more than just a few lessons. Coon posed the all-important question of the moment: “You said you learned a lot. Enough lessons to pull off a win tomorrow, especially starting from pole?”

A visibly satisfied Kyle Larson replied, “I think my car is much more competitively matched to his car for tomorrow. So in other too, I think my car is really, really good, I think. Like in five, and in nine, all the way to eleven. So that gives me the confidence tomorrow. But you know, Cup races are really hard. There’s way more good cars, way more good drivers. A lot of drivers with great racecraft. So it’s tough.”

Raising the hopes of all Larson fans worldwide, he would finally conclude, “But I like my chances for tomorrow. At least have another good run and we’ll see.” With double the track time and renewed confidence, it wouldn’t be too surprising to witness Kyle Larson become the 2024 Cup Series’ first four-race winner in Chicago.