Larson not obsessing over Cup win drought

The winless streak of the reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion is thought about by everyone but the reigning champion.

“I think you guys pay attention to it way more than I pay attention to it,” Kyle Larson said during his Saturday media availability at Watkins Glen. “Obviously, I would have loved to have won to this point, but we just haven’t been good enough. I feel like at times we’re really close to getting a win, and then at times I feel like we’re far from getting a win. So, it just kind of shows how tough the series is.”

Larson last won a Cup Series race on May 11, 2025. It was his third win of the season at that point, and he was leading the championship standings.

By season’s end, the Hendrick Motorsports driver laid claim to his second title but did not have to win the finale to do so. A late caution that set up overtime put Larson ahead of the competition, on that day, Denny Hamlin, on a tire strategy coming off pit road, and he crossed the finish line third. Hamlin finished sixth.

Through the first 11 races of this season, Larson has led 499 laps and has six top-10 finishes. He finished seventh at Las Vegas after leading 62 laps. He finished third at Bristol, where he won last season, after leading 284 laps. And he finished second at Kansas after leading 78 laps.

“We’re working really hard,” Larson said. “I say the same thing every time you guys ask. It’s not like we’re not trying to win. We’re just kind of searching for how to be better, and sometimes maybe search too much, and get off track a little bit. Chase [Elliott] has had a good start to the year, but the rest of us have been kind of off, so we’re trying to work through it.”

Elliott is the only Hendrick Motorsports driver who has won a race. He is also the highest driver of the four in the championship standings at third. Larson is eighth, and William Byron is 10th. The outlier is Alex Bowman, who missed four races because of a vertigo diagnosis.

Larson has won three or more races every season since he joined Hendrick Motorsports in 2021.

“We’ve made the Cup Series look easy at times, and I’ve never thought it was,” Larson said. “So I’m glad that we can show you that it’s not easy.”