Kyle Larson has started the 2019 season with great speed. He finished top-10 in the Daytona 500 despite being involved in numerous crashes. This past week, Larson was arguably the fastest car in the field. However, a pit road speeding penalty mired him deep in the field.
This week, Larson opened up with NBC Sports’ Rick Allen about being the fastest Chevrolet team to start the season and things got a bit weird when he called the team that supplies his engines — Hendrick Motorsports — cheaters.
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After the video of the interview went public when NBC Sports’ Nate Ryan posted a story about it on Tuesday, Larson took to Twitter to apologize for the wording that he used in the interview.
In a screenshot of an iPhone note Larson said, “I want to apologize to Mr. Hendrick and Team Hendrick for the comments I made earlier today. I feel terrible about it. I meant it jokingly, but shouldn’t have implied they are anything but a strong competitor that gets better as the season goes on. I appreciate the engine support we get from them as they are major part of the reason we have been as strong as we are.”
Yikes, in the modern day buttoned up NASCAR, that escalated quickly.