Kyle Larson Predicts a Day Away From Chaos After Last Season’s “Dumb” COTA Run Left a Bitter Taste in Fans Mouths

Steamrolling into the COTA race weekend is Hendrick Motorsports speedster Kyle Larson. In fact, the Cup Series regular even before his highly anticipated ‘Double’ has taken up a double-duty at COTA. Before he rolls his #5 HMS Chevy to the 3.41-mile road course, Larson will get a first try in Focused Health 250, taking on the Xfinity Series field from the pole position. Ahead of his race, the 2021 Cup Series champion who lost his way in last year’s race shared his thoughts, revealing how things might pan out.

Kyle Larson drops in a bold COTA prediction

The #17 HendrickCars.com-sponsored Chevy returns to action this weekend for its second start of the 2024 NASCAR Xfinity Series season at COTA. This time, Kyle Larson will drive the car. Across his Xfinity Series career, Larson has a total of 14 victories. Ever since the team returned to the Xfinity side of things in 2022, the 31-year-old driver has made four starts in the series in the #17.

Two of those starts have come at road courses – Road America at Charlotte in 2022 and Sonoma Raceway in 2023, winning the pole position both times and leading a combined 84 laps racking a P2 and P3 finish respectively in each event. At Austin, Larson has a second-place finish in three NASCAR Cup Series starts.

Even before his Xfinity start, Larson keyed in with a bold prediction, saying, “I imagine you know the restart Zone being closer to the final Corner your cars will still like when the leader takes off the cars will still be kind of stuck going around that corner so there I believe should be less kind of you know seven wide into turn one and less dive bombs and crashes.”

Furthermore, he added, “I think you know because even fans last year were like this is kind of dumb right like we look like amateurs out out there so I think it’ll look a little bit more professional. I think you’re still going to have dive bombs for sure um but maybe not from four rows back and then just shoving guys through the two rows in front of you so um I think you it’s going to be good uh I think you’re going to I think it’s going to be a nice compliment to what drivers wanted you know plus what everybody kind of needed as far as you know just not crashing people.” 

For the unversed, Larson’s 2023 venture at the track went south when he went for a spin of the nose of the #11 JGR Toyota of Denny Hamlin, his friend/rival. While Larson fans complained that Hamlin deliberately did it to gain an advantage, others blamed Larson for pushing it too far.

“It’s going to be a tough one” – Larson details the COTA struggles despite his pole-clinching performance in COTA

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Speaking to Fox Sports after his qualifying run at the technical track, Larson got real about the struggles in the Xfinity Series. He said, ‘“I know we went fast there, but I was expecting the Xfinity cars to have a little more grip, but… It was tough to get used to there in practice.” Detailing his struggles at the road course, the 2021 Cup Series champion added, “We went to that first round there in some of the areas where I struggled in practice. Yeah, that was good and then it’s still like just getting comfortable.” 

“I mean 20 minutes is not a long time, I mean, you only get… five, six laps in practice, and then you gotta go run hard in qualifying so, all of us here on this pit road are still learning quite a bit tomorrow,” said Larson who took a sly jibe at NASCAR’s practice times. He then chimed in, saying,  “But thankfully for me, I get more laps in the cup car tomorrow, which will hopefully help some things out. really cool to get a poll here for HendrickCars.com, and we’ll see. We’ll see, it’s going to be tough. Like I said, there’s lots of slipping and sliding, and then… It’ll be just hard to keep your car going straight.”

With the first road course race of the season and several promising contenders in line, COTA is sure to be an exciting watch. Let us see how Larson’s pre-double turns out!

READ MORE: Kyle Larson Breaks Track Record and Beats Shane Van Gisbergen to Secure Pole at COTA