Kyle Larson isn't changing his strategy in next two races after qualifying for Championship 4

Kyle Larson may be locked into the Championship 4, but that won’t be changing his strategy at Homestead or Martinsville.

In actuality, Larson could punt on the next two races, and solely prepare for Phoenix. However, that isn’t in his competitive nature, and the Hendrick Motorsports star is planning to attempt to rack up two more wins over the next two weeks.

“It’s nice to be locked in,” Larson delineated, via SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.” The points are really close, so it’s good to not have to worry about points, and just kind of go there and race our own race, and try to run upfront and make good decisions on the race track. But you know, I’m also — knowing that I’m locked in, I’m not going there and thinking that these next two races are throwaways.

“I want to go there, have some good runs, potentially get another couple of wins, and roll into Phoenix with a lot of confidence and momentum, and try to go after our second championship.”

While Larson may not believe he has much of an advantage ahead of the Championship 4, Denny Hamlin does, as he took to his Actions Detrimental podcast, where he elaborated on how Larson’s two-week buffer will work in his favor. 

“What that means when some says, and you’ll see it a lot this week, Larson’s got an advantage. They’ll talk about Larson having an advantage because he can now shift his resources and thoughts into Phoenix,” Hamlin said. “What that basically means is that he’s going to spend extra time, instead of doing a bunch of work for Homestead, and meeting with his crew chief about Homestead this, Homestead that, how can we do this, what’s our strategy — they’ll shift their focus into, what do we need to do to run well and win at Phoenix? You know, while it’s a very, very small advantage, it is still an advantage. 

“He’s not having to hyper-focus hours and hours and hours on, what’s our strategy for this race or that race, or Martinsville. What are we going to do there? Do we need to run extra sim time? It’s not historically been a great track for him. He can forget all that. Pass that up, and go right to Phoenix, and apply that extra time.”

Alas, time will tell how Kyle Larson races over the next two weeks, but it’s evident he’ll have a leg-up on the competition come time for the Championship 4, not that he needs it.