Kevin Harvick: Truex and Larson are the "benchmark" in the Cup Series

Truex picked up his third win of the season in dominating fashion on Saturday night at Kentucky Speedway. He and Jimmie Johnson have the most wins this year. Larson has a pair of victories and six runner-up finishes, the most recent also coming Saturday night.

“Truex and Larson still are really fast. That’s the benchmark we’ve seen all year and on the mile-and-a-half race tracks, obviously, everybody is paying attention,” Harvick said during an appearance Monday night on Fox Sports 1’s “Race Hub” show. “For the rest of us, we definitely have a little work to do.”

Truex led a race-high 152 of 274 laps Saturday night and at one point had upwards of a 15-second lead over his nearest rival.

Closing the gap

That type of dominating performance puts a lot of pressure on other teams, Harvick said.

“Just because of the fact you want to try to close that gap. I know for not only our team, but all the other teams in the garage, you’re looking at pictures; you’re looking at data; you’re looking at lap times,” he said.

“You’re looking at anything you can wrap your arms around to say, ‘Ok, where do we need to get what better? What do we need to work on?’ Everybody’s going to have a plan to say, ‘We’re going to make our bodies better. We’re going to try this in upcoming weeks … and try to close that gap.’"

Harvick’s No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing team has been one of the most consistent teams this season but only picked up his first victory of the season two weeks ago at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway.

“You can’t force it, and that’s the biggest thing. You know what happens when you start trying to force things in this sport – you start making mistakes, you start getting frustrated,” Harvick said.

“The two biggest things you have to control are the morale of the team and not trying to force things and start making too many mistakes.”