Kevin Harvick on Kyle Busch struggles: 'I don't see a win anywhere for the 8'

Kevin Harvick doesn’t quite see a path to the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs for Kyle Busch beginning to show itself.

After another wreck ended his afternoon in Pocono, Busch is in a dismal spot, with no momentum and outside of the Top 16 in points. He’ll likely have to win his way into the playoffs, but Harvick explained why it’s not looking promising at the moment for the No. 8 wheelman.

“We’ve talked about this before on the show. He’s just at this point where, the cars aren’t fast enough, stuff is falling off the cars, they have issue after issue. When it goes good, he gets in somebody else’s mess. There’s nothing that’s going right for Kyle Busch,” Harvick said, regarding his fellow NASCAR Cup Series champion, via the latest episode of Harvick’s Happy Hour. “Most of the time, recently, they haven’t had the speed to even do what they need to do, to try and make up for that, because that’s the difference, between the No. 20 and the No. 11 and some of these other cars that are having issues. They have the speed. That keeps the confidence level high.

“Kyle still has the maturity level, at this particular point, to not get himself buried deeper after the race with his interviews, but man, what a terrible position the No. 8 car is in. I don’t see a win anywhere in sight, for the No. 8.”

Regardless of Busch’s struggles in 2024, there’s one race where everyone in the field will have a chance, and that’s the Daytona cut-off race at the end of August. Could Busch be earmarked for a must-win opportunity there? Harvick won’t exactly count it out from happening.

“I feel like he’s got a couple of chances,” Harvick added, pertaining to Busch’s ability at winning to make the Cup Series playoffs. “Daytona, is obviously going to be his best chance, and I still believe that Daytona is going to put that 16th place car currently in a bad position, which is Ross Chastain. I think Daytona can put those cars in a terrible — it’s going to be somebody outside of the Top 16.

“I just have this feeling that it’s going to be somebody outside of the Top 16, and it’s just going to be this wild, 16th place points position, and this week, it couldn’t have gone worse for Ty Gibbs. It couldn’t have gone worse for Ross Chastain. Bubba Wallace actually made up points to the 16th spot, but I just look at, I look at Daytona and I just think to myself, ‘Man, there is going to be some risk taking that happens there,’ and there’s going to be somebody outside of the Top 16 that wins.”

Whether it’s Kyle Busch or someone else, Daytona is going to be a hectic race for any driver without a win on the season. Perhaps the No. 8 can surprise us over the next couple of weeks, but Kevin Harvick isn’t counting on it happening before a return to Daytona in August.