Kyle Larson and the No. 5 team did not have a good weekend at Phoenix Raceway.

The team had a poor qualifying position with 22nd and it did not get any better after that. They finished 22nd in Stage 1 and then finished 27th in Stage 2. During the final stage of the race, Larson blew a right front tire and crashed into the wall ending his race with a DNF and a 34th place finish.

Larson’s Crew Chief Cliff Daniels addressed the poor day following the race telling members of the media, “Certainly disappointing, but at the same time we put as much effort into this race as we have for a Phoenix race, really ever. That’s a lot to say because typically Phoenix is the Championship race. Man, we put a lot of hard work into it.”

“I’m a big believer that the Good Lord has us right where we’re supposed to be,” he continued. “And sometimes you have difficulty, you have struggles. Today was a terrible day. Our car was way off. Don’t know why. ‘Cause we had done a lot of work in the sim. Kyle, to his credit, was really invested in it and we were too as a team. We thought we were solving for something correctly from where we’ve been here in the past. And, obviously didn’t come together today. Flat tire under green. When the track temp comes up so quick like that you’re in the middle of a green flag cycle, you have hot breaks. I thought we were in a really safe spot on air. Obviously, we weren’t. From where we had all blown tires a year ago, I was a pound or more higher than that. So really thought we had margin in the tank there and obviously we didn’t.”

“Disappointing day, but if you plot the average finishing position of the 5 team ever, it looks just like this,” Daniels added. “So we’re okay and we have a lot of strength. We have a lot of poise. We are not fearful of what’s ahead. We are going to keep fighting hard.”

He would later elaborate on that point, “In realistic way this is familiar territory for us. And the truth of the matter is we are not even behind right now. We’re still up by just a little bit. We have a great team. We have a lot of great people at Hendrick Motorsports. I very much believe God has us where he wants us to be. Whatever the difficulty is right now, we’ve got to learn from it, be tough, be strong. I know our team is going to be pretty quick to get over this and keep moving forward because you have to be. And I think the Chase this year has shown the way the points can fall. You can have such a big swing every week, you’ve got to make sure you’re ready when the swing comes your way to go maximize and get all those things right. And that’s what’s going to be on our plate moving forward. So we’re going to lick our wounds, dig in, and push forward.”

Daniels also noted how they struggled to find improvements despite throwing the kitchen sink at the car.

“We threw so many things at that car, but, man, I’m just waiting to see a sign of life, and I don’t know that we made it a lot better. Don’t know. Very unfortunate. I very much give Kyle a lot of credit for not cussing me out or quitting or all the things he could have done. He kept fighting too. And, yeah, just an ugly day. Like I said, we’ll find the things we need to to put it behind us and go push hard for the next three.”

He also addressed how they are looking at the next three races and specifically what they need to accomplish next week at Talladega.

“I know Talladega is a tough one next, but we typically are capable of putting together two thirds of a really good race at Talladega now we need all three of the thirds to come together. Martinsville we’ll be okay, and Homestead it’s game on. Three more races, we’re going to be strong, we’re going to be tough. God’s got us wherever we need to be. We’ll learn what we can and keep moving.”

Despite the 34th place finish, as Daniels noted Larson still maintains the points lead with three races left in the season. Larson has a five point advantage over Christopher Bell. Not only does he only have just a five point advantage over Bell, but now Tyler Reddick is within striking distance in seventh place. He’s just 56 points back.

Here’s what the Chase points look like following the Phoenix and heading into Talladega:

Larson’s best finish at Talladega in the Next Gen era is a second place in the Spring race in 2025 after Ryan Preece was disqualified. He has two other Top 5s. He finished 4th in the Spring 2022 race and the Fall 2024 race. However, his average finish in nine starts is 18.1. His worst finish was this past April where he finished 40th after he was collected in a wreck.

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