Kyle Larson, crew chief Cliff Daniels takes steps on how to initiate...

What could have been a devastating mistake may prove to be a lesson that helps Kyle Larson and crew chief Cliff Daniels win a second NASCAR Cup championship within three seasons.

Larson’s crash into the sand barrels at the entrance of pit road last weekend at Homestead ended his race, but it was what led to that incident that had Larson and Daniels talking afterward. The result is that they’ll make a change in their communication on the radio.

Larson charged to pit entrance at Homestead, trying to close the gap to Ryan Blaney so he had a better chance of getting by Blaney and taking control of the race. Instead, Larson was too aggressive and slammed into the sand barrels, ending his chances to win.

“I made a mistake, but I don’t necessarily think it was as big a mistake as what TV looked like,” Larson said Saturday at Martinsville Speedway. “But there was a lot to learn from it. We all didn’t realize that I was a second faster than (Blaney) on the previous two stops.

“I think looking forward that will be a piece of communication to me, how I rank to people so I know what to expect. If I’d have known that I was a second faster, I wouldn’t have tried to go a second and a half faster than he did that time and run in the back of him.”

Larson’s total time on pit road was faster than Blaney’s in the first three pit stops they had in last week’s race at Homestead.

“The Homestead situation in particular, there were things that we could have done differently in stage 2,” Daniels told NBC Sports. “There were some things that I could have provided him for some context of what was happening around him. I could have done a better job with that. I think he could have done a better job with what he was seeing and thinking in the moment.

“So we both kind of own a share in that and I think that’s OK to say because ultimately had we executed our stage 2 better, than I don’t think that puts us too far behind to start stage 3 and then we’re not playing catch-up and that sort of thing.”

It’s better to go through that at Homestead when Larson — the 2021 Cup champion — had already advanced to next weekend’s title race at Phoenix than for this to have happened at Phoenix.

“I think it’s a healthy a mindset that both of us share and having the trust in each other to say ‘Oh shoot, I did that wrong or you did that wrong,’” Daniels said. “No one gets offended. We just talk through it because at the end of the day we both have the same goal and we’re very kind of lockstep on the way we see things once we take in all the necessary information to make a good decision.”