MADISON, Ill. — “Is Kyle Larson back?” “Is he the championship frontrunner?”

Surely, those are the first questions that come to mind when a two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion caps a 51-race winless streak with a victory in the early portion of the 2026 Chase presented by Mobil 1.

Larson parked the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet back in Victory Lane Sunday at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway for the first time since the 2025 spring race at Kansas Speedway.

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But amid the showers of celebration, the California native is dialing down the knob on the “he is so back” conversation.

“Back to what? Back to 2021? No. Back to 2023? No,” Larson said. “But we’ve been definitely building to get back to Victory Lane. I don’t know if we’re quite yet to where we can go dominate like we have in the past, but a day like today definitely gives you confidence leading into a track (Bristol) where we know we can go dominate.” 

While it hasn’t been for a lack of effort, the No. 5 team and Hendrick have been behind the curve as the Toyota tandem of Joe Gibbs Racing and 23XI Racing won a combined 24 races during Larson’s drought and have put a stranglehold on NASCAR’s premier series with Denny Hamlin sitting as the current points leader and championship favorite entering The Chase.

Additionally, Chevrolet brought an updated body to the Cup Series at the beginning of the season and that left the Hendrick organization scratching its head on falling even further behind the Toyota camp.

“We didn’t quite know our deficit to the field,” No. 5 crew chief Cliff Daniels said. “So early in the year, we were taking, I would just say, too many risks and too many different approaches that weren’t necessarily what we should have done at the time. I think of like Phoenix, we got on a different page at Phoenix early in the year than what we needed to be. Darlington early in the year — we did not do a good job of just the setup that we put in the car and kind of how we approached that one. We have learned through those mistakes that we can’t just go overreach on everything every week. Like everything can’t be in question every week. There’s some things that have to be your solid foundation point.”

Daniels admits the winless drought has made his team be more measured in how it approaches race weekends.

“You’ve got to be more calculated of the things that you’re going to build in that are different, and you’ve got to be equally as calculated of the things that you’re going to build in that aren’t different,” Daniels said. “That’s been a 5 team thing, but it’s also kind of been a Hendrick thing here recently.

“We’ve really had to push ourselves and learn to find that balance of ‘OK, we need to bring a few new things to the race track this weekend. We’re still getting beat. We’re still getting outpaced.’ So we still have to put in the work to find those things.”

Coming into 2026, Larson had won no less than three races in a season going back to his first championship in 2021 when he took a whopping 10 checkered flags en route to his crowning moment in his first season with Hendrick Motorsports.

But after the Kansas win in 2025, mistakes and unforced errors began plaguing the No. 5 team and Larson.

Most notably, Larson had a double-DNF day in his final attempt at the Indianapolis 500/Coca-Cola 600 Memorial Day weekend combination that seemed to catalyze the drought. But Hall of Famer and Hendrick vice chairman Jeff Gordon admits Hendrick hasn’t brought the best equipment for Larson to succeed in his slump.

“I’ve seen this in my own career and others over the years where things aren’t going your way, you make some mistakes or some things happen to get you in a vulnerable position,” Gordon said. “That’s one thing and that can get you down, but the thing that gets you down the most, especially when you’ve had success, is not having fast race cars, not having cars capable of of running up front. And I think if anything, it’s probably challenged those guys the most. We’ve had a lot of conversations this year about how we’ve been approaching some of the races, knowing we’re behind. We’re always trying to catch up, get our cars better, and working through that with all of our teammates at Chevy and Chevy themselves internally. Effort was being put in and we just weren’t seeing the results and just kind of took some time this season.

“Kyle’s just one of those guys when if the speed’s there, I see his confidence pop right back up right away.”

While 16 months and 51 races without a victory appear long for the standard Larson has set at the Cup level since joining Hendrick, Larson said he doesn’t see it that way and never lost any confidence in his team.

“I always had the trust in our team and the trust in Cliff Daniels. It’s not like we’ve gotten worse as a team,” Larson said. “The trust was always there. I wouldn’t say there was really anything to learn, and that’s why I think the drought didn’t feel so long — and maybe the championship helped with that. Every week I hear you guys tell the new number, and it’s like, ‘It doesn’t seem that large.’ ”

Rolling off a top five and a win to begin The Chase, Larson has quickly ascended from the No. 7 seed to second in points and trails Hamlin by just nine points for the championship lead.

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Larson has been a thorn in Hamlin’s side over recent years when it comes to championship battles, including last year when the No. 5 took the trophy in overtime at Phoenix after a two-tire vs. four-tire strategy call vaulted Larson over the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota at the finish.

Whether there is an advantage to chasing the leader early in The Chase or not, Larson has noted the struggles of both Hamlin and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Chase No. 1 seed Justin Allgaier early in the postseason.

“I think it’s tough to know what’s going on in his and his team’s kind of heads in this moment,” Larson said of Hamlin. “I would say leading into The Chase, like Denny and Justin Allgaier were the two heavy favorites, and they’ve not opened The Chase up as strong as they have been the last few months. I don’t know if it’s because they were just racing free in the regular season, and now you’re trying to protect. We’re just trying to do the best job we can and try to score as many points as we can. I would love to be nine points ahead than nine points behind right now. But it’s been a good start to our Chase.”

There’s no telling if Larson will win again this season or prevent another lengthy drought that extends past a calendar year. But the 34-year-old wheelman is never backing down from adversity and will embrace whatever challenges present themselves to him moving forward.

“The struggle’s fun,” Larson said. “I don’t mind it. I’ve said that all along, too. I’ve had more fun this year than a lot of years and we hadn’t won till this point. I don’t mind the struggle. I’m not scared of it.”