“Can’t focus too much on him”: Kyle Larson recalibrates attention away from Shane van Gisbergen ahead of Chicago Street race

Kyle Larson recently gave his take on Shane van Gisbergen getting all the attention ahead of the Chicago Street Course race. Gisbergen was the winner of the street race's first edition last year, which also happened to be his first race in NASCAR.

In fact, the Kiwi won at Chicago once again on Saturday in an Xfinity car, beating Kyle Larson to the victory lane.

But Larson, who is on the pole for Sunday's race, claimed that the situation is different than last year for Cup regulars. Daniel Suarez of Trackhouse Racing also touched on a similar idea on Friday.

During a media session on Saturday, Kyle Larson was asked whether starting two rows ahead of SVG and being on the pole on a street course was an advantage for him.

"Sure, that helps, but he’ll (Shane van Gisbergen) probably be up there right away. We keep talking about him a lot, but everyone in the Cup Series is really good, so you can’t focus too much on him," Larson said [at 6:40].

Speaking about the key in a race like Chicago, the Hendrick Motorsports driver also gave his thoughts on the importance that track position held on a street course race.

"Here, I think it’s important, but I think with stages and stuff like that, it honestly can mean a little bit less just because you’re always going to find yourself in traffic at some point, I feel like, with road course racing and stages, people flip the stages or whatever," Larson added.

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"He’s just really good at creating shapes": Kyle Larson on racing against Shane van Gisbergen

After Shane van Gisbergen won his third race in a row on road/street courses this season, and his second in a row on Chicago, Kyle Larson opened up on what he wanted from the race. Larson claimed that although his primary objective was to win the Xfinity race, but he also wanted to take away something from the experience.

"I wanted to learn more than anything. And I wanted to get to battle with him because he’s just really good at creating shapes and angles and passing, and that was an objective of mine. The first opportunity I got, I wanted to get racing because I just didn’t know if you’d ever have another opportunity to race with him," Larson said (via NASCAR).

Kyle Larson said that his racecar seemed to be a bit better than SVG's for a few laps, which helped him to pass the Kiwi. But also claimed that the Chicago Street Course winner was "so much better" than him.

While lauding SVG's performance, the 2021 Cup champion believed the on-track action between him and Gisbergen was "good fun", and made for an exciting race.