Kyle Larson Clinches Third NASCAR Cup Title After Winless Regular Season
Kyle Larson clinched his third NASCAR Cup Series championship on Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, sealing the title before the halfway point of the season finale and completing one of the most remarkable turnarounds in the sport’s recent history.
The 34-year-old Californian finished fourth in Stage 1 of the 267-lap race, collecting seven stage points that put the championship mathematically out of reach of Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin. Ryan Blaney went on to win the race itself, while Larson came home 12th, his finishing position rendered irrelevant by the points he had already banked.
A title sealed before halfway
Larson entered the finale with a 67-point lead over Bell and a 70-point advantage over Hamlin, needing only nine points to guarantee the championship regardless of what his rivals did. He did not wait long to collect them.
NASCAR reported that the decisive moment came on Lap 78, when Chase Briscoe’s No. 19 Toyota went up in smoke and brought out a caution at the end of Stage 1. Larson crossed the line fourth, and with it the title was his. It was an unusually early coronation for a series that has spent recent years deciding its champion on the final lap of the final race.
From winless to champion
What makes this title stand out is the road Larson took to reach it. He went the entire 26-race regular season without a victory, then transformed his season once the Chase began, winning three of the nine races before Homestead and averaging a 6.7 finish across those events.
Frontstretch reported that Larson entered the Chase eighth in points, an afterthought in a field that had spent the summer winning races while he searched for form. By the time the series arrived in South Florida, he was the driver everyone else was chasing.
The Phoenix scare and the Talladega answer
The championship very nearly slipped away a fortnight ago at Phoenix Raceway. Handling problems and a tyre failure sent Larson into the wall and to a 34th-place finish, cutting a 49-point championship lead to just five. Seven drivers suddenly sat within 56 points of one another, and the title race was wide open.
Larson answered the following week at Talladega Superspeedway, rallying from 11th on the final lap to win his first drafting-track race in an overtime photo finish. A ninth-place finish at Martinsville then restored his commanding advantage heading into Homestead, setting up the early clinch.
A place among NASCAR’s greats
The title is Larson’s third overall, following championships in 2021 and 2025, all with Hendrick Motorsports and crew chief Cliff Daniels. He becomes the 11th driver in NASCAR history to win at least three Cup Series championships, joining Lee Petty, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip, Tony Stewart and Joey Logano.
He is also the first driver to win back-to-back Cup titles since Jimmie Johnson completed his run of five straight championships in 2010. “Congratulations to Kyle Larson, Cliff Daniels and the entire No. 5 Chevrolet team on their third NASCAR Cup Series championship,” said Mark Reuss, president of General Motors.
The title extends Hendrick Motorsports’ record to 16 Cup Series driver championships and delivers Chevrolet its 35th driver championship in the series.
What comes next
Larson will return to the track in February, when the Cup Series opens its 2027 season with the Wheatley Vodka Clash at Daytona International Speedway on 13 February. Kaden Honeycutt won the NASCAR Truck Series title at the same track earlier in the weekend. For now, though, he can reflect on a championship won the hard way: no wins for six months, then a ten-race run that no rival could match.
It was a weekend of dramatic finishes across American sport, from the Giants ending a 13-year drought in Philadelphia to Lando Norris winning a wet São Paulo Grand Prix. But few comebacks this year will match Larson’s journey from a winless regular season to the top of NASCAR.
