Kyle Larson sees parity among NASCAR Cup Championship 4 contenders
AVONDALE, Ariz.— Kyle Larson smiled at the question but quickly clarified that, just because he is the only driver in the Championship Four field to have won a NASCAR Cup Series Championship previously, he does not necessarily consider himself a ‘favorite” this weekend at Phoenix Raceway.
There is no edge with this group of competitors, the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion contends.
“Sure, we could all probably think up a reason of why there could be an edge that I would have,” said Larson, who drives the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. “We’re all just so good and the teams are so good, I just don’t buy into anything like that.
“But we’ll see. I think having won before, I am a champion, so if I win another one, great. if I don’t, I’m still on the list. There’s that. But I don’t think that gives you any sort of competitive advantage.”
The 33-year-old Californian has three victories and topped 1,000 laps led in a season for the fifth time in his career. His 21 top-10 finishes are most among the four title contenders, and only Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chase Briscoe (15) has more top fives than Larson (14).
Although he hasn’t won a race since May 11 at Kansas, Larson is confident his team is in good shape, perhaps even peaking at the right time. He’s got 14 top-10 finishes in 22 Phoenix starts—a win to land him the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series championship and top-five finishes in four of the last five races at the desert one-miler.
“Just really excited to get on track and see if it’s what I expect it to be. But all four of us are going to be really good,” Larson said.
“We all have experience winning here,” he said pausing and smiling, “But I’d really like to win this fall.”
Chase Briscoe eyes title in first year with Joe Gibbs Racing
Last year at Phoenix Raceway, Chase Briscoe was reluctant to leave the race track.
He had just run his last race with his No. 14 team at Stewart-Haas Racing, not as part of the Championship 4 but as a driver for a team that was shutting its doors at season’s end.
It was the end of a dream for Briscoe and the beginning of another fraught with uncertainty.
“It is crazy, what a difference a year can make,” Briscoe said on Thursday during Championship 4 Media Day at the Phoenix one-mile track. “You go from being sad and down in the dumps… I don’t know, it’s just weird.
“We were the last people to leave last year, because we didn’t want it to end. We knew when we walked out of the tunnel that that group would never be together again. They literally kicked us out. They forced us to leave. We were here longer than the champions.
“But hopefully this year, I’m the one that’s here the longest again.”
In 2024, Briscoe won the Southern 500, the regular-season cutoff race. That earned him an unexpected berth in the Playoffs, but he was out in the Round of 12.
After moving to Joe Gibbs Racing this year, Briscoe has three victories, the most recent of which, at Talladega, propelled him into the Championship Race.
Briscoe’s Stewart-Haas group, however, hasn’t abandoned him.
“This week, all the 14 guys—we still have a group chat—they all were sending me motivational videos and trying to pump me up. (Former crew chief Richard) Boswell sent me a text this morning and sent me a video of all his kids wishing me good luck.”
Briscoe is the only one of the Championship 4 drivers who hasn’t raced for a NASCAR Cup title in the season finale. Even before he drove a JGR car for the first time, Briscoe knew expectations were high.
“I’ve raced against Joe Gibbs Racing, so I knew that, if everything went well, there was a very good likelihood that you’d be racing for a championship,” he said. “Year one—I’m not going to say it’s surprising, but it also I would say exceeded expectations for year one, for sure.
“It would mean a lot to do it in year one, just with everything, with Coach (Joe Gibbs) obviously taking a chance on me. Just to start our tenure off together winning a championship would be pretty cool, but it would certainly make the expectations going forward way harder.”
William Byron hopes third straight Champ 4 appearance is the charm
After a dramatic victory in the Round of 8 elimination race last Sunday at Martinsville Speedway, William Byron maintained a deliberately low profile on his trip to Phoenix Raceway for the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race (3 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Byron elected to fly commercial to the title race.
“I live 15 minutes from the commercial airport in Charlotte,” Byron explained. “I go TSA Precheck, keep my head down—it’s great. I love it. I love to get treated like a normal person, which I am.”
Normal people, however, don’t drive stock cars at breakneck speeds in hopes of securing a series title. That’s what Byron will do on Sunday, when he chases the Bill France Cup for the third year in a row.
In 2023, Byron won the pole for the Championship Race and dominated the early portions of the event. He won the first stage and led 95 laps but faded to fourth as the track cooled in the late afternoon.
As it turned out, that experience was also emblematic of the current season, where inauspicious circumstances often kept Byron from finishing as well as he ran during most of a particular event.
“We’ve learned the hard way this year that it’s never over,” Byron said. “I think that’s what sticks with me. I mean, honestly, until that guy throws the checkered flag, the race is not over.
“I’ve learned that the hard way this year, and that’s kind of fueled the way I prepared.”
In the first race of the Round of 8, Byron was running up front when Ty Dillon slowed in front of him, planning to enter pit road. Unable to avoid Dillon’s car, Byron slammed into it with a vicious impact that knocked him out of the race.
A week later at Talladega, Byron was running comfortably in the top 10 when he spun in the tri-oval a quarter-mile short of the finish line.
Those two incidents set up a must-win situation for Byron at Martinsville, a circumstance that allowed him to race without attention to points. That’s similar to the situation he’ll face Sunday at Phoenix, where the driver who finishes highest among the Championship 4 will claim the title.
“I did look at the board during the race, and I’m like, ‘It’s so nice not to be worried about this BS,’” Byron said of the Martinsville run. “It’s not necessarily winner-take-all per se (at Phoenix), but it definitely is a third stage (is) what matters.
“You have to race the race, but the end is all that really matters.”
Denny Hamlin ready to seize the opportunity in fifth Champ 4 try
Denny Hamlin looked relaxed and said he was relaxed, but the veteran and winningest driver of the 2025 season conceded this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Championship Race represents a significant milestone for him even as he’s already turned in a celebrated career.
The driver of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota earned an emotional 60th victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway three weeks ago to claim one of the weekend’s four title bids, and at the age of 44 sees no better time than the present to add a NASCAR Cup Series championship to a legacy that ranks him 10th on the all-time wins list in a career highlighted with three Daytona 500 trophies.
“It feels a little bit different,” said Hamlin, whose best championship finish was runner-up to Jimmie Johnson in 2010. “Less rushed, I guess you could say, and simply because we did so much of our (preparation) for Phoenix before this week, so less rushed is the biggest difference I feel over previous (Championship Four bids).”
This marks Hamlin’s fifth time in the Championship race under this format—the first since 2021—and he arrives at Phoenix with twice as many wins (six) than anyone else in the championship field this season.
“I definitely feel optimistic about it,” he allowed, adding, “Just generally in a good headspace.”
Yes, Hamlin conceded, he probably has the most pressure on him as the oldest championship eligible driver. But he is ready.
“Is this my last opportunity or not?” Hamlin asked rhetorically. “Any format change coming that will be a bigger sample size should be better for me in general, but you just never know. You have to seize the moment that’s right there in front of you.
“So, I would certainly confirm the pressure is probably most on me because these guys know they’ve still got a long way to go (in their careers).”
— NASCAR News Wire —