Larson Seals Third NASCAR Cup Title at Homestead After a Chase Run for the Ages

It came down, in the end, to a plume of smoke on Lap 78.

Chase Briscoe's No. 19 Toyota let go as Stage 1 of the NASCAR Cup Series championship race wound down at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday, the caution came out, and Kyle Larson crossed the line fourth. Seven stage points. That was all it took. Before the field had even reached halfway in the final race of the season, the championship was mathematically Larson's — his third Cup Series title, his second in a row, in the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

Over the radio, crew chief Cliff Daniels kept it simple. "Good job to you. We're going to keep our eyes forward, and we're just going to keep running through this race, how's that?" Larson, ever the racer, replied, "Yeah, love it. Let's go." The race win was still undecided, but the title was settled — and the way it was settled said everything about how Larson got here.

Because this was not supposed to be his year. Larson went the entire 26-race regular season without a victory, carrying a 51-race winless drought into September, while Denny Hamlin entered The Chase as the No. 1 seed, 55 points ahead of seventh-seeded Larson.

Then the postseason started, and Larson turned into a different driver. He snapped the drought at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, then opened the playoffs with finishes of fifth, first, second, first and second, banking 273 points in that run — nearly double his regular-season pace. At Kansas he swept both stages, led 235 laps and scored the maximum 76 points. At Las Vegas a 26-second pit stop dropped him a lap down, but he still finished second.

Charlotte ended his run of five straight top fives with a sixth. Then came Phoenix, where handling problems and a tire failure sent him to 34th with just three points, and a 49-point championship lead shrank to five overnight. Seven drivers suddenly sat within 56 points of one another, and the title race was wide open.

Talladega answered that. Larson had never won in 58 previous drafting-track starts, yet he led 23 laps, fell to 11th on the final lap and then charged back through the tri-oval for his first superspeedway win — 71 points in one afternoon, and a lead that went from five points to 73. Martinsville offered one last scare — a lap down early, no points from the first two stages — before a late caution handed him the free pass and a ninth-place finish.

He arrived at Homestead 67 points ahead of Bell and 70 clear of Hamlin, and Stage 1 did the rest. Larson is the first back-to-back Cup champion since Jimmie Johnson completed his five-title run in 2010. He joins Lee Petty, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip, Tony Stewart and Joey Logano as a three-time champion, and delivers Hendrick Motorsports its record 16th Cup title.

His three title runs could hardly look more different. In 2021 he overwhelmed the sport, winning 10 races and leading 2,581 laps before taking the Phoenix finale. In 2025 he survived the moment, never leading a lap at Phoenix before a two-tire gamble helped him finish third and claim the crown while Hamlin's race slipped away. This time there was no single restart or late gamble to define it — just a ten-race run that held together through dominant wins, remarkable recoveries and the odd miserable afternoon. As Daniels put it: "I feel like it's us against us, and it's always been that way." On Sunday at Homestead, that was finally enough.