Cliff Daniels, Kyle Larson’s crew chief, joined Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the newest episode of the Dale Jr. Download, which followed the No. 5 team’s Brickyard 400 triumph.
Larson and Daniels made one of the most consequential moves by starting behind Brad Keselowski, which allowed the No. 5 to take the lead and never look back. Earnhardt Jr. wanted to hear from Daniels about what happened between the driver and his crew chief when the decision was made.
“You know, don’t you?” Do you choose to follow Brad Keselowski for any reason other than being on the inside line? I mean, do you? Do you understand Brad’s clear lack of fuel? “His own crew chief had stated that they were not going to make it,” Earnhardt Jr. explained. “I’d be cautious to line up behind his car because I don’t know how he’ll react. So, what was your cognitive process during the conversation?”
While Daniels relented that he recognized the risk of starting behind Keselowski, Larson and company believed it was one worth taking, and it ended up being the decision that won the race for the Hendrick Motorsports team.
“Well, you’re right, and we knew how big of a risk that it was going to be,” Daniels responded. “And at the same time, kind of thinking through the scenarios, we tried not to confuse ourselves too much with this conversation. But we knew, if Brad ran out, you know, coming to the restart zone or whatever, you know, NASCAR does have the rule that you can’t pass before the start finish line, unless the guy in front of you has trouble, so kind of our best shot to have a chance at the win, knowing where we were lining up, was going to be behind Brad.
“If Brad’s car did run out of fuel, then hopefully we push Brad past the No. 12 (Ryan Blaney) into Turn 1, and now you know, we get to race it out with Brad for the win, you know, kind of hoping and knowing that they were going to be tight on fuel. I don’t think anybody expected it to go quite the way that it did. And certainly a big, a big kind of free window of opportunity opened up for us. I think Kyle was back and forth in his mind at the time of which car to pick behind, but knowing how dominant the bottom lane was there, I knew why he chose what he did.”
Ryan Blaney might not have been happy with the way things transpired on that restart, but Kyle Larson and Cliff Daniels played their hand to perfection, and the No. 5 notched a Brickyard 400 win because of it.
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