By NATE RYAN The Associated Press
MARTINSVILLE, Va. (AP) — Kyle Larson is on the verge of his second consecutive NASCAR Cup Series championship, but he was more relieved than happy after salvaging a nearly disastrous Sunday at Martinsville Speedway.
“It was a difficult race,” he said. “It was just a bummer day. It all could have been a lot worse.”
It nearly was worse for his closest Chase rivals, who missed some prime opportunities to cut into Larson’s points lead heading into the Nov. 8 season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
By rallying from a backfiring strategy for a ninth-place finish at Martinsville, Larson lost only six points off his massive lead in the standings. He leads by 67 points over Christopher Bell (who finished 10th) and needs only nine points at Homestead, which is among his best tracks (with two wins in the past four races) to capture the title. Bell and Denny Hamlin, who is 70 points behind after a sixth at Martinsville, are the only other drivers still in title contention through nine races in the Chase, the 10-race championship run that concludes the season.
“I think we know,” Bell said with a smile when asked about his title outlook.
While Larson had to fight for a top-10 finish Sunday, his Hendrick Motorsports teammates were cruising at the 0.526-mile track.
William Byron won for the first time since a year ago at Martinsville, and Chase Elliott made it a sweep of the top two spots for Hendrick, the winningest team in Martinsville history with 32 victories. Ty Gibbs finished third.
“It’s always a really unique and important opportunity when you drive for Hendrick Motorsports to come here and try to do well,” said Byron, who led 362 of 500 laps for his 17th career victory and fourth at Martinsville.
Larson started best among the Hendrick drivers in third, but his No. 5 Chevrolet plummeted early because of faulty tactics.
While most of the field pitted for fresh tires after 75 laps, Larson’s team gambled by keeping him on track in hopes of an early yellow flag. But the stage stayed green until the caution that ended the first stage on the 130th lap with Larson in 23rd place and a lap down.
“We were just on the wrong side of the strategy,” he said.
But so was Hamlin, who started on the pole and led 40 laps but ended the first stage in 17th after electing to stay on track instead of pitting.
He then was involved in an incident with Bell, who spun from contact with Joey Logano after a speeding penalty in the pits.
“Just really came down to us running the no-stop strategy,” said Hamlin, who scored no points in the first two stages. “We just lost our track position. Once we lost our track position, it’s hard to drive back to the front. Nobody else did. The first stage was the killer for us.”
Hamlin gained three points on Larson but dropped behind Bell in the standings and essentially conceded his shot at the championship.
“This weekend, it was about everything to gain, nothing to lose. We just didn’t gain enough to make it realistic.”
Though he failed to become the first to clinch a Chase championship before the season finale, Larson will be a heavy favorite to deliver a record 16th championship for Hendrick — and a third Cup Series title in his career — ranking third in team history behind NASCAR Hall of Famers Jeff Gordon (four titles) and Jimmie Johnson (seven).
By scoring points during the first two stages at Homestead, Larson could lock up the title well before the checkered flag, which seems his plan.
“We’d love to get a couple good first stages, then pound it in the third stage,” Larson said.
Up next
The NASCAR Cup Series will conclude its season at Homestead-Miami Speedway for the first time in seven years. The 1.5-mile oval in South Florida was the season finale from 2002-19 before Phoenix Raceway became the championship track for the past seven seasons. Kyle Larson won the most recent Cup race at Homestead on March 23, 2025.