"He was a great contender": Kevin Harvick believes Kyle Larson and team are back on track following back-to-back Top 5 finishes

Kevin Harvick opened up about Kyle Larson's recent surge in terms of performance after the Hendrick Motorsports driver's back-to-back Top-5 finishes. Speaking about Larson, the former NASCAR driver was of the opinion that the #5 team was getting back on track before the playoffs.

Larson finished the recently concluded Brickyard 400 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in runner-up position, as Bubba Wallace claimed the win. With this, the #5 driver finished two races within the Top-five (Larson came home in fourth place at Dover).

Having already qualified for the playoffs after winning the races at Miami, Bristol, and Kansas, Kyle Larson is eyeing his second Cup Series title. Notably, his recent surge in form is expected to give him all the impetus, believes Harvick. Speaking about this, here's what the former NASCAR driver said in the recent Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour podcast:

"I think that they're back on track. I think that it's a lot like we saw last year. I don't think they have the speed advantage like they had at the beginning of the year last year or the beginning of the year this year. I think that for whatever reason, their cars are always better prepared at the beginning of the season. They're still well prepared at the end of the year, but they don't have that advantage that it seems like they have to start the seasons with the, you know, the speed that they seem to have."

"So, I think that that's as good as Larson has run in a while and was a contender all day and they had good strategy and all those things. That's a great team. I mean, Cliff and that whole team on Larson's car do a great job. So, they've rided the ship, but can they do it when it counts?" Harvick further added. (16:01-16:45)

Kyle Larson is in third place in the regular season championship with 711 points after 22 races. He claimed three wins, 11 Top 5s and 14 Top 10s, and led 873 laps, the most by a driver this season. His average start position has been 12.818 and has an identical finish position of 12.818.

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Kyle Larson let his feelings known after finishing runner-up at Indianapolis

Kyle Larson shared his thoughts after he failed to stop Bubba Wallace from claiming the Brickyard 400 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Speaking about his race, here's what the Hendrick Motorsports driver said in the post-race interview:

Kyle Larson, driver of the #5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet, drives during the NASCAR Cup Series Brickyard 400 - Source: Getty

"It was a solid day. The beginning of the race didn't go well. I didn't have a good start, and it's like, damn, that's maybe gonna kill our race strategy. But our team just did a good job with the strategy that we were on and we executed the green-flag cycles really good, and he [Wallace] was able to kind of maximize what we had going on."

Kyle Larson qualified in 13th place for the race, behind Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski. He finished Stage 1 in eighth place and Stage 2 in second place before crossing the finish line behind race winner Wallace.