“We have a championship-caliber team”

Last year, Larson entered the playoffs as the regular season champion and No. 1 seed behind the strength of five wins and 52 playoffs points.

He went on to advance to the championship race, where he held off Martin Truex Jr. to claim his first series title.

The road to a repeat for Larson will be harder this season as the 2022 playoffs kick off on Sunday night at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway.

He enters this year’s playoffs as the fourth seed with two wins through the first 26 races and 19 playoff points. But Larson and his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team have also failed to finish races an uncharacteristically six times (three for engine failure).

Larson’s HMS teammate and 2020 series champion Chase Elliott holds the No. 1 seed this year.

“Well I think our regular season didn’t go very well, to our standards, but I don’t really know if it did for anybody,” Larson, 30, said. “Even for Chase (Elliott), like I don’t even know if his regular season was up to their standards. There was just a lot of inconsistency this year throughout the regular season.

“We had three blown engines now in the regular season, so DNF’s with that. But also mistakes on my part or bad pit stops. Yes, we got a couple wins, which was nice, but we also probably gave away a couple, as well.”

In need of some consistency 

Despite the inconsistent results, Larson has been competitive each week but he has not been in contention for wins near as often as last season (he’s led 307 laps this season, 10th-best in the series).

His best performances this season have come on intermediate speedways which make up half of the 10-race playoff schedule.

“I do still feel like we are prepared for the playoffs. I feel like here lately, our pit crew has been performing well. Our cars have been fast all year long,” Larson said. “Cliff (Daniels, crew chief) and our guys have been making good calls on top of the box.

“I’m doing a little bit better job of taking what I can get out of the race car and not overstepping things. So, I feel like we’re prepared. We just have to hope that everything comes together and this is the time of the year for that.

“I know we have a championship caliber team. We proved that last year and we just have to do it again.”

While Larson believes there are still “favorites” to win the championship among the 16-driver field this season, the unpredictability of the year due in large part to the debut of…