While the majority of drivers in Thursday’s Playoff Media Day fully conceded there was no single overwhelming pick to win the season trophy. All of them—from weekly frontrunners to new Playoff drivers—were able to make a case for being legitimate title favorites.
That, of course, included the most recent title winner, Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson, who has two wins in 2022 and is ranked fourth in the standings, 21 points behind Hendrick teammate Chase Elliott.
“We are a championship contending team, and we have all the parts and pieces to get it done,” Larson said. “I’m definitely confident.”
Larson did share that the flow of work and information sharing for the Playoff portion of the season will be no different for the four Hendrick Motorsport teams—all race winners during the season and all expected to be contenders beginning with Sunday’s Playoff-opening Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington.
“Everybody works probably even better together during the Playoffs,” Larson said, dismissing any notion that the four teams may operate more independently during the championship run.
“(Team owner) Rick (Hendrick) has four opportunities to win, and we want to give him a 100 percent of an opportunity to win once we get to (the Championship 4 race at) Phoenix. So, I feel like we work together closer. Just the way I experienced it last year in the competition meetings and stuff like that, so, yes, it’s no different (than the regular season), if not better.”
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