Kyle Larson offers vote of confidence for crew chief Chad Johnston

TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Kyle Larson's start to the 2019 season has been "pretty crappy" by his own admission, making that characterization after being the first driver out two weeks ago at Richmond Raceway and limping into the Easter off weekend. Several factors have contributed to the Chip Ganassi Racing No. 42 team's sluggish opening act to the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season. One component that's not a concern in Larson's view: Crew chief Chad Johnston, who is in his fourth season atop the No. 42 pit box. RELATED: Kyle Larson season stats | Full schedule for Talladega Larson offered a vote of confidence for Johnston on Friday afternoon at Talladega Superspeedway, site of Sunday's GEICO 500 (2 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The remarks came in response to comments from fellow competitor Kevin Harvick during his weekly "Happy Hours" program on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio earlier this week. "I have all the confidence in the world in Chad," Larson told NASCAR.com. "I think he's an amazing crew chief. I mean, you can just look at the performance from when he came to our team and we were way better than we were the first couple years. As of late, I think people forget, they just look at the results and don't look at what's happened to us in the races to put us back where we were. Texas, I felt like we had a really fast car and we blew a right-front. Bristol, we had a loose wheel and then a pit-road penalty during that and we went three laps down and fought back to get to the lead lap, then had another flat tire. Richmond, me and the 8 car got together and we had a flat. [ndmsvideo vid="6021007689001" iframe="true" play="false"] "So I don't think our string of bad finishes have anything to do with our team other than just bad luck. Chad builds great cars and calls great races, so I've never had any doubt in him. It's just been a bad month and a half or whatever it's been now, so hopefully we can turn our luck around. That break came at a good time, so excited to get back going." Larson sits 19th in the Monster Energy Series standings, with just two top-10 finishes in nine races thus far. He headed into the off weekend with two last-place results in the previous three races. RELATED: Season standings | Opening odds at Talladega Harvick, on his show, reiterated his praise for Larson's talent, but said that he needed proper guidance to pull out of the team's current tailspin. Harvick added that he wasn't sure if that would come from Johnston, who has called the shots for all five of Larson's premier-series wins. "I think when you look at his environment, I look at his crew chief," Harvick said. "I don't think he's the most positive guy in the world. When you have a driver that is in a slump, I don't think it's going to come from his crew chief. I think Chad is a pretty low-key guy that kind of complains a fair amount. I think as you look at that, I don't know if it's going to come from his crew chief." Johnston spent two seasons (2014-15) at Stewart-Haas Racing as Tony Stewart's crew chief before joining the Ganassi organization to work with Larson. His tenure there overlapped with Harvick's first two seasons at SHR. "Kevin's gotten to work around him, so I'm sure he formed some sort of opinion on him then," Larson said, "but I don't think he can really know what goes on between our team or the 1 team. "You can make judgments. I mean, I can make judgments on other teams as well and be totally wrong. I think I've proven that in the past." Larson added with a chuckle as his eyes panned the Talladega garage. "It's just, everybody's got opinions."