“It was going to be a bad look”: Kyle Larson imagines scenario of not getting a waiver

Kyle Larson recently spoke about how things would've been if NASCAR had not issued him a waiver. After missing out on the Coke 600, Larson's playoff hopes got stuck in a temporary limbo as a decision on the waiver just wouldn't come.

Several days passed, and speculation grew as many wondered if Larson would get a waiver or not. At one point, the idea of NASCAR considering not giving the 2021 Cup champion a waiver was also floated. However, after many days of speculation, Larson was granted a waiver.

Larson has asserted that it would have looked bad for everyone if he had not been given one.

"I was hoping to get the waiver because it was going to be a bad look on everything. This is going to be a bad storyline. Say I did end up winning the driver's championship and didn't get credit for it, that would be terrible for all parties. But I'm thankful for NASCAR for giving our team the waiver and I'm thankful to be racing in the Cup Series every week," Larson said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

Larson, the Hendrick Motorsports driver, claimed that his being a Cup champion probably played a factor in his waiver decision. Having said that, he mentioned that drivers earn money from owner points, considering it's the owners who get paid.

"As long as I was making my check and all that, that's really what matters the most to me," he added.

It's worth mentioning that NASCAR journalist Jordan Bianchi had a similar idea as to what would've happened had Larson not gotten a waiver. According to Bianchi, there would have been an asterisk whenever Larson won a race, a stage, or the regular season championship.

Bianchi said that if NASCAR hadn't granted Kyle Larson a waiver, it would've loomed over the sport as "a black cloud" that would've followed it everywhere until the end of this season.

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HMS was unaffected by the uncertainty over waiver decision

Speaking after Larson's recent win at Sonoma, Jeff Gordon revealed that the period of uncertainty over the #5 driver's waiver didn't have an effect on the team.

"I think it was on the minds of Cliff [Daniels] and Kyle and Rick [Hendrick] and Jeff Andrews and myself and Chad [Knaus], at that level, maybe on the PR/media side of things. But as far as how that trickled down the team, I didn’t see where they were really wavered by it," Gordon described.

The 4x Cup champion claimed it was "business as usual" within the HMS camp and preparations were underway for the upcoming races as they normally are. Gordon suggested the best medicine in such cases is getting back on the racetrack.