Is Kyle Larson on the verge of exit from playoffs? Everything you need to know

The Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday marked the start of the playoff races. The race was filled with many turning events, including Joey Logano's win and Kyle Larson's DNF. Car number 5 driver Kyle Larson kicked off his playoff with a crash in the first stage of the race, which had a huge impact on his playoff qualification.

Kyle Larson began the Atlanta Motor Speedway in sixth position with a best time of 31.082 and was competing in the top five cars till lap 56. In the 56th lap, Larson's car snapped and sent him to the wall, and Chase Briscoe got involved in the crash. Kyle Larson finished 37th, and Chase Briscoe got 38th position.

The Hendrick Motorsports driver is currently tenth on the leaderboard, with ten top 5 and thirteen top 10 finishes in the 2024 Cup Series season so far. He even led the regular season leaderboard but lost to Tyler Reddick by just one point. However, a recent drift in Kyle Larson's performance has been seen from the Michigan International Speedway.

Larson started in fourth place and finished the race in 34th place, and this continued at the Daytona International Speedway, where he finished in 21st place while starting from 9th position. Now after the Atlanta Motor Speedway's result, the Hendrick Motorsports driver needs to either win either of the upcoming races at Watkins Glen or Bristol or has to keep himself among the top 12 drivers.

Kyle Larson has some promising records on the Watkins Glen and Bristol circuits. Even in 2024, Larson raced at the Bristol Motor Speedway and started in 10th place, yet he managed to finish the race in 5th place, earning 44 points. He even won twice at Watkins Glen in 2021 and 2022. The stats show that the Hendrick Motorsports driver has high odds of advancing to the next round of playoffs.

Kyle Larson talks about his Atlanta race

Larson was doing pretty well up until the 56th lap. In the 46th lap, he was going head-to-head with the top three finishers of the race.

"I was getting tighter and tighter. So, yeah, they just that caught me way off guard. I was like, I was never once even in that same corner, like loose, and then it just started stepping out. I corrected. And, yeah, overcorrected," said Larson in a post-crash interview posted on X.

After the crash, Larson was sent to the infield care center and outlined his run; after getting released, he told NBC, "I'm OK."

Continuing further, he said:

"Thankfully, everything held up well inside the car. That was a huge hit. I’m not really sure what caused it. I was actually sort of tight and loaded in the corner. And then I was pretty far around the corner, and it just stepped out. I don’t know, it all just happened really fast."

The Hendrick Motorsports driver's teammates William Byron, Alex Bowman, and Chase Elliott did well in the standings. Bowman started the race from 11th position and finished in the top five. Elliot began racing from 16th place and finished eighth. Byron stayed the same starting from 9th and finished in 9th place.