Briscoe Takes the Pole for NASCAR's Title Decider as Larson Lines Up Fourth at Homestead

Chase Briscoe has given himself the best seat in the house for the biggest race of the year.

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver topped qualifying on Saturday at Homestead-Miami Speedway and will start from the pole in Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race, the final race of the 2026 Chase. Denny Hamlin, one of the men still chasing the title, will line up right beside him in second, with Tyler Reddick third and points leader Kyle Larson fourth.

It is a front row with two very different stories in it. Briscoe has the clean air and the clean track position. Hamlin has the urgency. He trails Larson by 70 points going into the decider, and starting on the front row is the very least he needed after a Chase that has kept slipping away from him. Reddick, third on the grid, is another man who has made a habit of rising to the big occasion this autumn.

Larson, for his part, will be glad simply to be starting in the top five. His weekend began badly. In Friday's practice he kept finding the outside wall while ripping the fence, and afterwards he was candid about it, saying he was confused by what the car was doing and that he was never comfortable out there. Fourth on the grid is a recovery of sorts, and it hardly matters much for him anyway. Larson needs only nine points on Sunday to secure his third Cup Series title. Christopher Bell, who starts sixth, trails him by 67 points; Hamlin, as noted, by 70. The maths is overwhelmingly in the No. 5 car's favour. All Larson has to do is stay out of trouble.

The rest of the top ten reads like a roll call of the season's heavyweights: Austin Cindric fifth, Bell sixth, Chase Elliott seventh, William Byron eighth, Ryan Blaney ninth and Daniel Suarez tenth.

Qualifying was not without incident. Brad Keselowski spun and hit the inside wall on his lap and could not complete it, leaving him 40th and last on the grid for the finale. It was a miserable end to the day for a driver who has had little go right lately, and he will have 39 cars to pass if he wants to salvage anything from Sunday.

Sunday's race, which starts at 3 p.m. ET on NBC, is a homecoming of sorts for the sport. Homestead hosted the season finale every year from 2002 to 2019 before the championship weekend moved to Phoenix for six seasons. This year the title decider is back in South Florida, and the place has a habit of producing a proper finish. Last year's spring race there was won by Larson himself, though he hardly dominated it — Blaney led the most laps and Bubba Wallace the second most, and Larson only got to the front when it mattered, on the last lap.

That is the thing about Homestead. It rewards patience and punishes greed, and the man who leads the most laps is not always the man holding the trophy at the end of the night. Briscoe has the pole and the clean air. Hamlin has the desperation. Larson has the points. On Sunday afternoon, only one of those things will be enough.