NASCAR: The championship is already Kyle Larson's to lose

into the weekend, did what absolutely everybody expected him to and dominated the Pennzoil 400 en route to securing his first victory of the 2024 season.

Not that he wouldn’t have gotten in anyway, but Larson’s win effectively locks him into the 2024 playoffs, as there have never been more than 16 race winners over the course of a 26-race regular season since the current 16-driver playoff format was introduced in 2014.

While it’s still a long season ahead, Sunday’s race confirmed that this year’s championship is already Larson’s to lose.

The race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was considered the start of the “real” season, given the fact that the year began with two drafting races — many times considered “wild card” races — at Daytona International Speedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway.

If Larson wrecking in superspeedway races is pretty much a lock, so is him being the driver to beat in most “normal” races, specifically those at typical intermediate tracks such as Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Larson and the No. 5 team can already look ahead to the playoffs, and everything they gain over the final 23 regular season races — wins, stage wins, playoff points, etc. — is gravy.

Now it’s all about building for the three-race season that is the round of 16, the three-race season that is the round of 12, the three-race season that is the round of 8, and the make-or-break afternoon that is the Championship 4.

Sure, the same can technically be said for every driver who locks into the postseason from now until the regular season finale at Darlington Raceway in early September, but not every driver has the pedigree of Larson.

Winning in the playoffs is what really matters, and Larson has eight such victories in his three most recent playoff appearances.
This isn’t a 2018 or even a 2019 Kyle Larson, who would regularly lead a lot of laps and find ways to blow it in the end. It was almost like a running joke that he couldn’t actually close out a race.

He led over 1,300 laps in those two seasons and managed a single win, and this was actually during a period when Chip Ganassi Racing were as good as, if not better than, Hendrick Motorsports. The driver who had long been touted as one of the most talented drivers in the world had six total wins in his first seven seasons in the sport.

No; this is a Kyle Larson who has proven that he is one of the most talented drivers in the world and has regularly shown it since arriving at Hendrick Motorsports as Jimmie Johnson’s replacement in 2021.

And no, I don’t care that Tyler Reddick closed the gap to Larson in the closing laps on Sunday. You’re fooling yourself if you think he had a chance to win that race. The same situation unfolded in stage one and stage two, and Larson held him off. Sunday’s result was a foregone conclusion long before the checkered flag.

Has he won every race? Of course not, but don’t confuse “choking” with “losing” in a series with as much parity as the NASCAR Cup Series. He has learned the art of execution and has established himself as the series’ most potent driver.