After his late-race clash with teammate Chase Elliott last week, Kyle Larson has said that Hendrick Motorsports owner Rick Hendrick led a meeting with all four HMS teams ahead of this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
“Rick called a meeting with all four teams and just kind of reiterated his expectations with us drivers, so it’s good to get those reminders every now and then,” Larson said Saturday.
“We’ll continue to race good in the future with each other, so I’ll catch up more with Chase here in a little bit and we’ll be good.”
Larson noted that the meeting was not in-person due to travel obligations.
He also said that as far as he could recall, it was the first time he’d seen Rick Hendrick take such a role in a meeting since he joined the organization ahead of the 2021 season.
"(Hendrick’s) been to competition meetings and stuff like that, and we’ve had multiple meetings about different things,” Larson said. “But as far as racing and stuff, that’s the first one I can remember him getting involved in.
“I think we all know his expectations and after the incident last weekend, it was good for him to get involved again and tell us what the expectations are.”
With 21 laps to go in last Sunday’s race at Auto Club Speedway, Larson and Elliott made contact while racing for the lead amongst themselves and Joey Logano.
Elliott was forced into the wall and expressed his anger with Larson on his team’s radio after the incident. Larson went on to win, while Elliott finished 26th with a damaged car.
Larson’s spotter, Tyler Monn, later took responsibility for the incident on social media. On Saturday, Larson said his relationship with Monn has been positive.
“Tyler’s great,” he said. “I’ve been very, very happy with him as my spotter. The way things worked out for us to get him last year was so last-minute, but I feel like we ended up with the best option I can have as a driver. He’s been great. We’ve had a lot of success together and I trust him a lot.
“We’ve talked quite a bit this week. We both are learning these new (Next Gen) cars. The runs are huge, so there’s a lot to be learned. You have to have some incidents sometimes to really learn quickly and that’s what we’re going to do going forward.”