Kyle Larson wins second straight NASCAR Cup Series title

Kyle Larson won his second consecutive NASCAR Cup Series championship Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, clinching his third title in six years.

Larson entered the season finale with a 67-point lead over Christopher Bell and needed only nine points to wrap up the championship. He got one point for starting the race and seven more by finishing fourth in the opening stage, the Associated Press reported. When Bell did not win the opening stage, he had no path to catch Larson the rest of the afternoon.

The 34-year-old Larson became the 11th driver in NASCAR history with three Cup titles. He is the first back-to-back champion since Jimmie Johnson in 2010, and both of them did it driving for Hendrick Motorsports. Johnson won five in a row beginning in 2006, a streak that stood alone for 16 years until Larson’s run.

Larson clinched the title so early that crew chief Cliff Daniels delivered the news over the radio before the race was half over. Larson responded by saying, “That was anticlimactic.” He scraped the wall early in the second stage, cut a tire and finished 12th. “Got the word that we had clinched it, and I started driving like an idiot,” Larson said. “I’m more mad at myself.”

Ryan Blaney won the finale, passing Tyler Reddick of 23XI Racing with a little more than a lap to go as NBA legend Michael Jordan watched from pit road. Reddick finished second, followed by William Byron, Bell, Bubba Wallace and Denny Hamlin. The championship race returned to South Florida for the first time since 2019.

Blaney held a brief celebration in victory lane before clearing the way for Larson. “Obviously he’s incredibly talented,” Blaney said of Larson. “His natural, God-given talent is off the charts. He is very deserving to win his third championship.”

Larson stopped near the start-finish line for a smoky burnout and exchanged high-fives and hugs with his team, his wife and his three children. Owen, 11, grabbed the championship flag and waved it. Audrey, 8, threw confetti at her brothers. Three-year-old Cooper stood atop the No. 5 Chevrolet and held up a single finger.

The title was a coronation more than a contest. Larson put himself in position with a dominant postseason, winning three of the 10 playoff events and finishing in the top 10 in eight of them. He was the only Cup driver invited to NASCAR’s championship media day Thursday, ESPN reported, which turned the week into a conversation about his place in motorsports history.

Jeff Gordon, the vice chairman at Hendrick and a four-time Cup champion, was asked whether Larson would catch him. “He’s going to pass me,” Gordon said. “I’ve already come to that conclusion. Kind of knew that when he was coming to Hendrick Motorsports. He’s special.”

Gordon has four titles. Lee Petty, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip, Tony Stewart and Joey Logano have three. Richard Petty, Earnhardt and Johnson have seven. Larson, at 34, is the youngest driver on the three-title list and has time to climb.

Rick Hendrick, who won his 16th Cup championship as a team owner, did not hold back. “I think he’s got to be looked at as one of the all-time greats,” Hendrick said. Gordon added: “It’s hard to pick the most impressive thing that he does because he gets in an IndyCar, he goes fast, Sprint car. That’s rare air, very rare.”

Larson’s versatility separates him from most Cup champions. He has raced twice at the Indianapolis 500, won the Rolex 24 at Daytona, won three Chili Bowls and won four Knoxville Nationals. He belongs in the conversation with Parnelli Jones, Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt and Stewart, drivers who won across varying racing series.

His first title came in 2021, his first season at Hendrick, when he won four of the last five races. His second came last year at Phoenix, where he took advantage of a late caution and passed Hamlin on pit road with two laps to go. The third was the easiest of the three. Larson entered the finale with the title nearly secured and spent the week answering questions about history rather than the race ahead.

Hamlin, who finished sixth in the finale and has never won a Cup championship, gave Larson credit for the playoff run. “They deserve everything, the spoils of victory,” Hamlin said. “They performed absolutely incredible during these last 10 races.”

The finale drew a star-studded lineup to Homestead. Johnson, singers Jason Derulo and Cole Swindell, WNBA player Sophie Cunningham and golfer John Daly attended. Racing legend Mario Andretti sent Larson a good-luck message before the green flag.

The championship arrived amid a ratings slump NASCAR is working to reverse. NBC’s viewership for the playoff race at Martinsville Speedway the previous week was down 15% from last year and averaged just under 2 million viewers, making it the least-watched non-delayed Cup race on broadcast television, ESPN reported.

NASCAR CEO Steve O’Donnell blamed the decline on head-to-head matchups with college football and the NFL. He pointed to admission being up 5% across all races and attendance for kids 12 and up being up 12%. “Kyle Larson has gone on an historic run and deserves to be talked about,” O’Donnell said.

The Chase format returned this season, rewarding consistency and dropping elimination events during the 10-race playoff. O’Donnell said the format would not change, and he called Larson’s runaway title a fluke rather than a flaw. Dodge announced it will return to NASCAR’s Cup Series as a fourth manufacturer starting at the Daytona 500 in 2027, a move O’Donnell applauded.

What I think

Larson is the best driver in NASCAR right now, and the gap between him and the field is wider than the points suggest. Three titles in six years at Hendrick, with his versatility across dirt tracks, sports cars and IndyCar, puts him on a path that could end with five or six Cup championships. Gordon is right to say Larson will pass him. The question is whether Larson keeps his edge or settles into the comfort that has slowed other dominant drivers after their third title.

The harder problem for NASCAR is the television audience. A historic championship run coincided with the least-watched playoff race on broadcast TV, and the sport is betting on YouTube clips and social media influencers to fix it. A great driver does not solve a shrinking audience. Larson gave NASCAR a coronation worth watching, and not enough people watched.