Larson has “absolutely” got his eye on a closer points battle in the Cup Series

Kyle Larson is closely monitoring the NASCAR Cup Series points standings as more contenders enter the race for the regular season championship.

“Absolutely, I pay attention to it every week and I would imagine that probably everyone does – even the people who say they don’t,” Larson said at Pocono Raceway. “I pay attention to it a lot.”

Larson and the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team lead the championship standings, with an 11-point lead over teammate Chase Elliott heading into Sunday’s race at Pocono Raceway (2:30 p.m. ET), despite Larson having competed in one fewer race than the opposition because he did not start and score points in the Coca-Cola 600.

In the points table, seven drivers are less than 100 points behind him. Christopher Bell is eighth, 85 points behind.

A driver can earn a maximum of 60 points in a race. There are six races left in the regular season before NASCAR awards 15 playoff points to the regular season champion.

“I think we all feel like we’ve missed opportunities to score points … especially here lately for us,” Larson continued. “Iowa and then Chicago – if I could replay those two races and be a little more conservative, I’d probably have a 60-point lead right now.

“It’s frustrating for me, but we’ve got six races left so we just need to get back to those consistent runs and hopefully that’ll be enough to get the 15 bonus points.”

The ever-changing landscape in the points table doesn’t surprise him. He, like many of his peers, has noticed that competition in the next-gen era is more inconsistent than in years past. In other words, it’s now much easier to see teams being good one week and bad the next, and so on and so forth.

So when Larson looks at the leaderboard as often as he does, a few drivers stand out to him. One of them recently has been Tyler Reddick, who is now in third place.

“He surprised me where he is right now because I feel like he’s just calm, which is unusual for Tyler Reddick…” Larson said. “I was surprised because I looked before Chicago and I was like, ‘Man, he’s actually in range.’ I’ve been so focused on the No. 9 (Elliott) and the No. 11 (Denny) for the last four or five weeks, and then I thought, ‘Wow, he could easily steal that thing.’

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“I think you’ve seen some inconsistent runs here lately from myself, the No. 11 and the No. 9, with various issues at the end of races, where Tyler has been more quiet up front the last few weeks and finishing (well). Runs like this really help. We just need to keep getting good stage points, which we’ve been doing really well, but then get back to finishing races.”

Larson leads the points standings and the series in laps led (754) and is tied with Reddick for most top-five finishes in the series (eight). Reddick leads the series in top-10 finishes (13).

Bell leads the series in playoff points (24). Elliott leads the series in average score (10.6).

The story originally appeared on Racer