Larson, No. 5 team focus on process amid winless streak: ‘We’re pushing ourselves to get better’

SPEEDWAY, Ind. -- After two championships and 26 wins since joining Hendrick Motorsports, Kyle Larson is used to success. That makes his current 45-race winless streak all the tougher to reconcile, his longest such drought since joining the organization back in 2021 and all after clinching the Cup Series crown last November at Phoenix Raceway. MORE: Cup Series standings | Brickyard 400 lineup But with five races remaining in the 2026 regular season, neither Larson nor No. 5 crew chief Cliff Daniels are sounding the panic bells. Instead, they're relishing the opportunity to grow with new players like mechanic Mark Hudson and engineers Nathan Woodby, Ryan Bradley and Jarrett Schalch joining the fray while learning through adversity. "We started the year with four new team members," Daniels told NASCAR.com in a Friday interview. "And I try really hard to look at evaluating our process and how does our weekly flow go, and how does our at-track execution through practice and through qualifying and getting race changes done on Sunday (go). We have improved a lot as a team just in what that is. So a lot of confidence comes with that. Even if our outcomes aren't where we want, we're getting more and more confident just in our process." Make no mistake: The team is well aware of the goose egg that sits in their win column entering Sunday's Brickyard 400 (2 p.m. ET, TNT Sports, truTV, HBO Max, IMS Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). In fact, Hendrick Motorsports as a whole has just two wins through 21 races, both courtesy of Chase Elliott and the No. 9 team. This is unusual territory for a team of Hendrick's stature, backed by 15 championships and 322 victories. But Daniels isn't shying away from that story. "I think it's important to talk about because Hendrick hasn't had much of a winning season this year that we are typically accustomed to having, and so the conversations we've been having internally is a great look in the mirror," Daniels said. "It's a great reminder of just how, if you feel like you're a percent or two off in a couple areas, this sport is tough. And the garage continues to rise to a higher and higher level every year, and we're getting pushed to get better. So while there may be growing pains, that is also a really good thing because we're pushing ourselves to get better -- and that's in every department from how we build the cars, how we prepare the cars, how we pit the cars, engineering and simulation and all of those things. So we're going to continue to grow and get better. "We do need to find our way back to Victory Lane as a company, but we have a lot of the right people to do it. Everybody has stuck together. Mr. Hendrick came to us this week and just reminded us (of) the process of continuous improvement, and it is OK to be reminded when you aren't great of digging in, finding the things to make yourself better. Know that there's going to be a little bit of a runway to go achieve that, just from a timing standpoint. And as long as everybody's bought into that, which we are, then I'm confident that our company and our team can get right back to where we need to be. So the growth is tough but necessary." [caption id="attachment_520248" align="aligncenter" width="1300"]Jonathan Bachman | Getty Images[/caption] The results of the last three weeks paint a disappointing picture: 34th at both Chicagoland Speedway and EchoPark Speedway before a 15th-place finish, two laps down, at North Wilkesboro Speedway. But context matters too. Larson led 23 laps at Chicagoland before spinning from second; his EchoPark drive was strong before getting collected in a multicar crash late; and early pit-road damage at North Wilkesboro forced Larson to charge from the rear multiple times, walking away with a top-15 finish. Before those three weeks, Larson finished top five in five of the prior six races, signaling potential even if the ultimate result -- a win -- has yet to materialize. "I think we're a fourth- to seventh-place car and just need to do our best to finish there," Larson said Friday. "And if you continue to run in that window, you'll have some wins hopefully -- (the) opportunity for wins pop up. But yeah, I mean, we're always working hard to get better. And I mean, (we're) working harder probably than ever to get better, so yeah, hopefully it'll come together." Another encouraging takeaway for Daniels has been the team's patience in execution. That extends from Larson himself to the team members servicing the No. 5 Chevrolet. "I think we've made mistakes in the past of trying too hard to get it all at once," Daniels said. "And now, the game has just been refined so much by everybody in the garage that little moments of execution can really impact your day. So we need to be solid just on the baseline of what's in the car and make sure we don't miss those little moments of execution to do it right. And you've seen when we have missed it, it's impacted our day very negatively. And when we get it right, we're right up there with all the good guys." MORE: Daniels, Alexander preview Brickyard 400 But if one thing is constant in Daniels' leadership, it is his love of the process, the drive to derive the best of his teammates for a common goal -- now in pursuit of a second consecutive NASCAR Cup Series championship. "There's a lot of fun in learning some new guys and how to update your process with new guys that come in that have a little different skill sets and personalities," Daniels said. "And then once you get through some of the growing pains, how to keep putting it together in a more efficient way, in a more productive way, and we've been able to do exactly that. Very much appreciate the guys that left us at the end of last year because they had a great tenure with our team, and now we're excited of building around this new group. "And I think there's a lot of strength that we've been building over the summer. And sometimes, you have to go through difficulty and you have to go through those challenges just to know how to update your process and how to have the experience of when things don't go well. Unfortunately, that's just part of life. That's part of competition. Again, we're trying not to get too caught up in the outcomes. Of course, we have a job to do. Of course, we have outcomes to go achieve. But long before the outcome, you've got to have the team chemistry. You've got to have the process. You've got to have the daily discipline of how you go to work, and that's what our team has. And we're going to keep building on that."