Motorsport photo Matt Weaver Mon, November 2, 2026 at 2:27 AM UTC · 6 min read About Our Ads Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kyle Larson left the penultimate race of the NASCAR Cup Series season with a 67-point lead over Christopher Bell and 70 over Denny Hamlin .
A perfect race, one that William Byron put together on Sunday by the way, pays 76 points. In other words, it would take one of the worst possible Larson meltdowns combined with a tremendous race from either Hamlin or Bell to change the outcome of this championship.
Larson clinches by merely scoring nine points next week.
Hamlin made a third and long analogy on Saturday. It's now fourth down and very, very long with just seconds remaining on the figurative clock. Larson and the Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 team will claim their third championship in six seasons with a simply mediocre day at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
That is basically what they had had on Sunday.
Larson lost a lap during the first stage and ultimately scored no stage points but rallied to a ninth-place finish. Larson and Hamlin were both on a no-pit strategy that left them both without stage points.
In the second stage, Bell and Hamlin were each spun by Joey Logano , with the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 team also caught speeding on pit road. Larson and crew chief Cliff Daniels opened the door for the faint hopes of a comeback but no one walked through it.
"Yeah, I'm happy because at one point I think I saw the big screen say second-place was -40 or something," Larson said. "The day could have been a lot worse, but yeah, it's not locked up either, so there's still definitely pressure there.
"I don't know if I should feel pressure, but I'm going to throughout the week because these Next-Gen races can get crazy. I mean, you can get a flat tire, break a toe link; anything could happen and you don't get to score the points that you need to.
"So yeah, hopefully the first couple stages go good and we can score points and then have some fun in the third stage."
And with that, Hamlin knows for sure that his championship run is over, another playoff defeat over the course of his two-decade Hall of Fame career.
"Yeah, I mean, it's unrealistic for sure," Hamlin said. "We needed to be fortysomething back for that to be somewhat viable but we'll go there and do the dog and pony show in a week and act like we can do it.
"But we just didn't capitalize. It's not a chase we capitalized on and certainly did not execute to our best ability."
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Bell ultimately finished 10th, but to his own point, this isn't why he lost the championship.
"We didn't lose the championship by any means today," Bell said. "We lost the championship a couple of races earlier. We lost the championship at Talladega. Gateway was a big one. The steering issue at Vegas was a big one. We didn't lose it today. We lost it throughout the Chase."
Watch: Larson shifts focus to locking up title at Homestead-Miami
In other words, the only two drivers still eligible for the championship have now conceded that it is over.
For his part, Larson doesn't expect to be timid early in the race next week, and that means running up against the wall where this speed but also potential peril.
"I have no clue yet," Larson said. "I mean, it depends on what your balance is and all that, but to me, I mean, the wall's got more grip and the wall is where I'm comfortable, so I'm sure I'll be up there."
It now basically leaves nothing but the postmortems for what could have been. For example, how does Hamlin crew chief Chris Gayle explain the number-one seeded team with four wins after 26 races going winless over the next nine?
"We just didn't execute in a lot of ways," Gayle said. "I could go down every week and I could pinpoint something a little different that went awry every weekend. I'm trying to think if there was actually a clean event for us. Maybe Kansas? Yeah, we started further back but also maybe Charlotte, but we didn't really have a clean one. We kind of fell off there at the end and had trouble.
"So, it's just something different every time. We could not put races together like we did in the non-playoff season."
So that is that, and soon Hendrick Motorsports president Jeff Andrews will be able speak more definitively about what their 16th organizational championship means to them.
"I think it's where we came from, right," Andrews said. "I think the fact what I'm most proud of is to watch our leadership and our four crew chiefs and our race teams, the way they've locked arms and believed in each other.
"We've said all along we're Hendrick Motorsports and we haven't forgotten how to win races and championships. It just wasn't at our fingertips at that point in time during the year.
"I think for me, when it's all said and done next weekend, win or lose, what I'm going to be most proud of is just the team and the way the team has come together and worked together."
He is referring to their tough start to the season where Larson was mired in what became a 51-race winless streak. Chase Elliott won at Martinsville and Texas but Alex Bowman has gone winless and William Byron only won his first race on the year on Sunday night.
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Hendrick Motorsports had to battle, and that includes Larson and Daniels to get to the point they will be at next weekend, celebrating for a third time in six seasons.
"At the end of the season, this one's going to be really, really sweet just the way we've gotten ourselves back in the middle of this thing," Andrews said. "We've done it internally because of the belief and culture we have in each other internally."
Like his driver intending to run against the wall, Daniels intends to build the best car that will allow his driver to be as aggressive as he needs to be too.
"At this point, I just think it's going to be very in line for us to stay with the prep that we've already put in place," Daniels said. "There's so many good things that we've built to get us to this point for Homestead that we've got to see it through, and we've just got to give justice to all the hard work that's put in by not counting it too early. You've still got to put your head down, prepare a good car, and go execute a solid weekend."
As Hamlin said, there is a dog and pony show that everyone has to adhere to until it's over, but everyone also knows it's over.
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