One race remains, and the NASCAR Cup Series campaign concludes at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday. Three remaining Chase presented by Mobil 1 pilots—Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin—will battle for the championship crown at the 1.5-mile track, which hasn't hosted a title fight since Kyle Busch took home the hardware in 2019. The Cup Series field hasn't raced at the venue since March 2025, setting the stage for a wild finale.
Kyle Larson enters as the Chase leader, holding a 67-point lead over Bell and a 70-point lead over Hamlin. The No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports pilot needs just nine points to clinch the championship, and his track record is phenomenal. In 12 Homestead Cup starts, Larson has six top-five results, including career Cup wins in 2022 and 2025, plus a leading 645 laps led at the venue. Coupled with finishes of seventh or better in 11 of his last 14 races on 1.5-mile tracks, Larson is in an incredible position to become the 11th driver to win three or more Cup championships and go back-to-back.
Christopher Bell, driving the No. 20 for Joe Gibbs Racing, has other plans. While Larson boasts a slight edge in career average finish at Homestead with 12.0 compared to Bell's 12.2, Bell actually holds the advantage in average start at 12.2 to Larson's 13.4. With one win, two top fives, and three top 10s in six career Miami Cup starts, Bell's numbers prove the gap is much tighter than the points suggest.
Denny Hamlin enters this final stretch with ground to make up. The 45-year-old pilot of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing machine enters the finale facing a 70-point gap behind Larson. Despite a tough postseason, Hamlin brings unmatched experience to the track with 21 career Miami Cup contests yielding three wins, seven top fives, 14 top 10s, and three pole positions. His 10.2 average finish easily paces both Larson and Bell, giving the veteran a fighting chance to take big risks.
Meanwhile, the rest of the field is primed to play spoiler. Tyler Reddick leads all drivers with an 8.8 average finish in six career Cup races at the track. Since the 2022 start of the Next Gen era, AJ Allmendinger with 5.8, William Byron with 8.5, Bubba Wallace with 9.0, Alex Bowman with 9.3, and Ryan Preece with 10.7 all boast better average-finish marks than the remaining Chase contenders over that same span.
