After last season’s heroics in the Cup Series, Kyle Larson’s form was expected to drop in the 2022 Cup Serie season.
After all, he won 10 Cup races, including the championship, becoming the latest driver to achieve that feat since Jimmie Johnson in 2007. This season has been slow compared to last season for Larson, with just one win until now.
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What makes Larson special than many other drivers is his ability to win on different kinds of tracks, as Brad Keselowski highlighted:
“The challenge is the tracks are different,” Keselowski said. “In NASCAR, in order to be good, in order to compete for championships, you gotta be good at all different types of tracks. And there’s really five different types of tracks (superspeedways, intermediate, short, road, and dirt) … So it’s a really difficult challenge to be an elite NASCAR driver because it’s kinda like you’re a Jack-of-all, and rarely do you become master-of-all-of-them or even one. But you have to, and that’s what separates the best.”
“I look at a guy like Kyle Larson, and I think what makes him special is that he can win, realistically, at four out of the five types of tracks,” Keselowski said. “And that’s pretty impressive. Most of the drivers say, ‘I can win at two. I can win at three.’ But to be able to win at four out of five, that’s pretty good.”
The only track where Larson had weakness was the superspeedways. In the last 32 races on such track before the race at Talladega, Larson never managed to finish within the top 5. However, in the latest superspeedway race at Talladega, Larson not only finished fourth but was in contention to win until late in the race.
After that race, Larson has even bettered his reputation as a driver who can challenge in all kinds of tracks.