NASCAR CUP SERIES: FIREKEEPERS CASINO 400

June 7, 2026

Kyle Larson

Pit Lane Interview

Q. Kyle Larson with a strong long run car in that last run, able to drive up through a few positions there. What did you need today to be able to go contend for that win?

KYLE LARSON: I don't think anybody was going to contend with Denny there at the end. He was flying. Yeah, I just had a really, really bad restart and allowed the 23 to get to my outside again, and then I just got stuck in the middle for a couple laps and some bad aero positions. Yeah, just got swallowed up and probably fell back to 13th, 14th, 15th, somewhere in there.

My car was good, though, that last run and allowed me to drive back forward. Finally was kind of doing the things I wanted it to do earlier in the race. I would get through my front tires on entry, and then I couldn't be able to lean on my rears on exit. But for whatever reason, the last run there was kind of matched up, and I could carry good speed in and good throttle on exit and just move around.

Finally kind of move up the track and get some runs, move down the track if people tried to block me.

Glad that it came together that last run because I thought with that bad restart I was going to end up finishing outside the top 10. We'll take it. Good points today for our HendrickCars.com Chevy. We'll go to Pocono, a difficult track for us, and hopefully hit on it and be competitive.

Q. The last couple weeks it seems like the Hendrick Chevrolets have some speed again. Do you see that for your team as well?

KYLE LARSON: Yeah, absolutely. We're definitely a large step behind them still. We've closed the gap a lot. I thought Chase was better than I was today. William, when I got up there initially, I thought he was better than me as well.

Just there at the end he seemed to fade, and then Chase had his troubles. Who knows, if Chase was still out there, if it would have been a closer race there at the end.

Proud of everybody at Hendrick Motorsports because it's been a tough year of a lot of hard work to this point. But yeah, they keep digging in and trying to just find any little bit. I think there's still a lot to be learned with this body. I know it doesn't seem like much on paper probably, but just finding that balance has been difficult.

I feel like there's three weeks in a row that we've been close on balance. To me that says we're heading on the right path finally, and I'm motivated by that.