"I would've liked to have won it" - Kyle Larson comments on losing NASCAR regular season title to Tyler Reddick by a single point

Despite sweeping the first two stages at Darlington, Kyle Larson couldn't get ahead of Tyler Reddick in the NASCAR regular season championship, losing it by a single point to the 23XI Racing driver.

Over the course of the season so far, Reddick has 2 wins and 8 finishes inside the top 5. Whereas Larson has 4 wins and 6 finishes inside the top 5.

Following the race at Darlington, Larson was asked whether there's one race that he looked back at and wished for a different result at.

"It's easy to look back at that. But it's just as well for everybody. I'm sure Tyler Reddick has a handful of that, he feels it's gotten away but Iowa, Michigan, Chicago, that's just a few, Charlotte, if I could've just gotten to race there. I mean for us to come up a point short, I'm proud of that. I would've liked to have won it," Larson said. [1:15]

As for the race at Darlington, where he won stage 1 and stage 2, Larson was asked if he felt there was a moment when the race slipped away from him. The 2021 Cup championship said that in his mind, he didn't do anything wrong and that it was simply racing. Larson did point to the moment when Ross Chastain stayed out instead of pitting, which shook the #5 team's game plan slightly.

Speaking further about the race, Larson showered some praise on the race-winner, Chase Briscoe.

"It was going to be hard to pass Briscoe. He was much better than me on the short runs. He was tucked behind me. So I figured when he got clean air he'd be tough to beat. Congrats to him. That was awesome. He did such a good job. He was probably equal to me tonight. If he could've ever gotten in front of me, like him dominating, for him to stay in it all race long and withstand Kyle Busch pressuring him at the end, that was impressive," Larson said [00:40].

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Kyle Larson feeling nervous ahead of "wildcard round" of NASCAR playoffs

With the regular season coming to a close with two new race winners in the last two races, the playoffs will start with a first round that consists of a variety of different racetracks. In the Round of 16, the first race will be at Atlanta, the second at Watkins Glen, and the third at Bristol.

It'll thus be a superspeedway-like racetrack first up, followed by a road course, followed by a short-track. Because of the nature of the tracks in the first round of playoffs, it has been referred to by some as the "wildcard round," and Larson was asked for his take on the same.

"You're obviously nervous of the first round a little bit but we have a lot of bonus points, which is nice. So yeah hopefully we don't need to rely on it. That's why you work so hard throughout the year to win stages, and win races, just to position yourself higher in the points for playoffs," Larson said [1:50].

The Hendrick Motorsports driver also emphasized the importance of executing plans well with the fast cars the #5 team has had of late.

Larson added that his team is doing "a really good job" on the track as he hoped for a little bit of luck for the opening race of the playoffs at Atlanta.