Kyle Larson Blames Himself After His Embarrassing Loss to Hendrick Motorsports Teammates at the Daytona 500

Superspeedways have never been Kyle Larson’s strong suit, but the Hendrick Motorsports star did put himself in good positions in the Daytona 500 on Monday on a lot of different occasions. The driver of the #5 almost won stage 1, but his teammate Chase Elliott just beat him to the start/finish line by a whisker. In the end, the Hendrick Motorsports star managed a decent P11 finish, but he was not happy with himself after the 2024 Cup Series opener came to an end.

For Larson, finishing the Daytona 500 in a decent position was a big deal. But his disappointment after failing to finish in the top 10 certainly proves that he has been working on his ‘Superspeedways’ capabilities and based on his performance on Monday, there has been a marked improvement.

Kyle Larson rues poor decisions as he hails William Byron’s feat

Kyle Larson might not have won the race at the Daytona International Speedway but it was his teammate William Byron who earned perhaps the biggest race win of his career. The 26-year-old is the driver of the legendary #24 car, which used to be driven by none other than Jeff Gordon. Larson congratulated his teammate in an Instagram post in which he also shared his disappointment at not being able to finish higher in the race.

The driver of the #5 believes that his positioning was not the best when it came to the crucial moments as he took the wrong lanes, which ultimately cost him track position. Had it not been for the massive wreck on the last lap, the former Cup Series champion would have finished a lot lower than P11, but he did a good job of avoiding the wreck and the 500 without incident.

“Didn’t keep myself in the right lanes at the right time last night but proud of @teamhendrick and @teamchevy on the excellent execution as a whole. Congrats @williambyron on the historic win,” he wrote in a recent post on Instagram.

The driver of the #5 car was appreciative of his teammate in the post-race interview as well, but believed that his not being selfish was one of the reasons why he was not able to finish higher up in The Great American Race.

Read More: Ecstatic William Byron Claims He “Blacked Out” for the Last Few Laps at Daytona

Hendrick Motorsports star’s selflessness came back to haunt him

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Speaking about the race, the former Cup Series champion said that worrying about other drivers and not about himself was one of the mistakes he made. It was supposed to be a team effort from the Chevy cars in The Great American Race, but ultimately, that’s not how things turned out and he was quite disappointed as a result.

“We would start losing cars and then lose momentum and then we ended up in the back, so it didn’t work out for us. Look at it, learn from it, just really got to be more selfish honestly and more worrying about yourself in those moments than trying to stick together with certain people. If you hesitate to do that it ends up biting you,” the driver of the #5 said.

Kyle Larson will be looking to make a strong comeback at next week’s race at the Atlanta Motor Speedway, but much like Daytona, it is also a superspeedway, not one of his strong points. Do you think the #5 HMS car will finish in the top 5 next week? 

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