Kyle Larson wins NASCAR Cup Series championship: Interview with the champion, The Teardown, updates and stories from Phoenix (2025)

Kyle Larson led 108 laps and benefited from a quick final pit stop with less than 30 laps to go to win his first NASCAR Cup Series championship and become the first driver to 10 wins in a season since Jimmie Johnson in 2007. Truex, the 2017 Cup Series champion, finished 0.398 seconds behind in second place. Denny Hamlin, whose 46 wins without a championship are second only to Junior Johnson, finished third, followed by last year’s champion, Chase Elliott.

Sunday's deciding race comes on the heels of Saturday's photo finish, with Daniel Hemric edging Austin Cindric by 0.030 seconds to win the Xfinity Series championship, joining the Truck Series' Ben Rhodes as first-time NASCAR champions this weekend.

On Friday, 24-year-old Ben Rhodes won his first Camping World Truck Series championship, beating out finalists John Hunter Nemechek, Zane Smith and three-time series champion (and ThorSport Racing teammate) Matt Crafton.

1. Kyle Larson
2. Martin Truex Jr.
3. Denny Hamlin
4. Ryan Blaney
5. Chase Elliott
6. Aric Almirola
7. Kyle Busch
8. Kevin Harvick
9. Christopher Bell
10. Brad Keselowski

Stay tuned! The championship race is over, but our coverage is not.

Related reading and listening:

The Teardown — Kyle Larson, NASCAR champion: Free wherever you listen to your podcasts, or via The Athletic by clicking here

A nervous dad, Bubba Wallace's advice and a stranded race car: Daniel Hemric's long road to an Xfinity Series championship

‘I don’t know if I’m doing it right or wrong,’ but NASCAR’s Noah Gragson just wants to entertain

The key races that defined Kyle Larson and the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team in 2021

'Thriving in chaos:' Denny Hamlin takes an unusual approach to the NASCAR Cup Series championship race

NASCAR’s only female track president ready for Phoenix to host championship

(Photo: Chris Graythen / Getty Images)

Within seconds of walking into The Barn, a Western-themed bar inside Phoenix Raceway, Kyle Larson was holding a Captain Morgan and Diet Coke with a wedge of lime. It's part of a new tradition on NASCAR's championship weekend: a winner's reception by NASCAR chairman and CEO Jim France and NASCAR president Steve Phelps.

For more on NASCAR's unique new way to honor the champion, including the item given to the sport's new champion, read Jordan Bianchi's story.

(Top photo: Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)

The 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion joins Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi on The Teardown. Free wherever you listen to your podcasts, or via The Athletic here.

"(Kyle) grew up dirt racing out west. I grew up pavement racing on the East Coast. You literally could not get farther apart on the spectrum of racing."

As Jordan Bianchi writes, Cliff Daniels became Larson's crew chief last December and used dirt racing as a means to learning how Larson communicates in a racing sense. Their development as a team was evident this season, as Larson became the first driver since Jimmie Johnson in 2007 to have double-digit wins.

"When you look at his Cup career, I wasn't intimately involved in his Cup career before obviously this year," Daniels said after the race. "He did have a little bit of a stigma that he couldn't close and he ran dirt tracks a certain way and the way he approached racing was a certain way.

"I do think that there's a level of maturity that he has now as a champion driver, as a race-winning driver, whether it's on dirt or on the pavement; that when you hear the way he gets out of the car after winning a race and critiques himself and knows in the back of his mind what he can do better the next time, man, that separates the men from the boys."

He also said he didn't sleep the night before this race — or any race this season.

" I never sleep the night before a Cup race. Probably never will. As long as he's my driver, with Kyle Larson as your driver, you're the weak link, not him."

Larson said he didn't see his crew chief that way.

"We joke with Cliff a lot that when we don't win, he's sad and he's mopey and all this and that," Larson joked. "It doesn't surprise me, though; I guess that he thought he was a weak link just because he holds everybody to a high standard, but apparently himself, too.

"I think you need that, though. You need to have that drive in each and every one of you to want to be better each and every day."

(Photo: Chris Graythen / Getty Images)

Kyle Larson's closest supporters filed up the stairs of the NASCAR Cup Series championship stage, taking up nearly the entire length of the platform.

There were Larson's parents, Mike and Janet, who went from devoted sprint car fans to seeing their own son become the country's best race car driver.

There was Danica Patrick, the former driver who has remained close with the Larson family after leaving NASCAR.

There was Paul Silva, the mastermind behind Larson's sprint car. There was dirt racer Tyler Courtney — better known as "Sunshine" — who flew from Charlotte in hopes of seeing his good friend win the Cup Series title.

Along with a dozen or so others, they crowded together in a victory pose — enough people that a wide-angle lens may have been needed to capture the photo — and smiled as one.

There may have never been an American race car driver who put a year together like Kyle Larson's. But those close to him, like wife Katelyn, can’t even begin to process the surreal nature of what he’s accomplishing.

Jeff Gluck spoke to Kyle's close friends and family about tonight's accomplishment, which wasn't as easy as it looked.

(Photo: Chris Graythen / Getty Images)

After finishing third in the championship, Denny Hamlin said "there's nothing else I felt like I could have done differently."

Hamlin did not lead a lap Sunday, though he had his best chance when he and Martin Truex Jr. restarted on the front row with 60 laps to go. It's his fourth final four appearance and third consecutive appearance without a championship win. He was asked if he thought "am I going to keep getting shots at this?"

"This is the last generation of this car that I took a very good liking to over the last three years," he said. "We don't know what the Next Gen car brings. We don't know will our team be as good. Like there's just many, many question marks that happen after this.

"That's why we really put so much emphasis on let's try to win this, win this year. But honestly, there's just nothing else I could have done. There's nothing else. I drove as hard as I could every lap. I didn't have the speed for the first 20. It was evident in a lot of the restarts we had. It was actually overachieved in quite a few. But that was it.

"I have to live with the result because I can't change it. Disappointed, absolutely, for sure. But I knew kind of going into today I was going to need the race to go a certain way. If it goes the way it did last year, it goes green out, we're probably winning.

"But it didn't. We knew that our percentage was low, and that was the case. Many of these races come down to green-white checkers or shootouts at the end, and that just wasn't our strength and hasn't been ever."

Kyle Larson won the race off pit road during the final caution thanks to an 11.8-second pit stop. Of the Championship 4, Martin Truex Jr.'s 13.1-second stop dropped him to third for the final restart, and though he brought the fight to Larson over the final 20 laps, there was no catching him.

"We had just a solid day," said Truex, who led 72 laps. "We hung around right there where we needed to be, had a really good car, especially on the long runs early in the race. ... Felt like all of us were really equally matched, honestly. We were all really good, really fast. Whoever got out front seemed to be good on the short run, and then long run it was kind of back and forth between everybody all day it seemed like.

"So we did everything we needed to. We got a lucky break there with the caution when we pitted (with 65 to go) and got us the lead, and we were driving off into the sunset. I don't know what the caution was for, but just untimely caution for us and lost two spots on pit road and that was the race. Twenty to go, you're not going to pass one of the fastest cars out there. We just didn't have the short-run speed all day, and then certainly with 20 to go it's going to be hard to pass anybody out front in clean air.

"I think if we would have had the lead, we could have held him off. But hindsight is 20/20, and we didn't have the lead, so here we are. Really proud of our team and our season. Come in here once again as underdogs and had a shot at it, so that was fun."

Truex ends the season with four wins (Phoenix spring, Martinsville spring, Darlington spring, Richmond fall), and 13 top-5s.

(Photo: Mark J. Rebilas / USA Today)

Brad Keselowski's first day at Roush Fenway Racing is Tuesday. Sunday night, he and his Team Penske crew took some time after the race to have some cold ones.

Keselowski joined Team Penske for the final three Cup races of the 2009 season. Since then, he amassed 34 wins and the 2012 Cup Series championship.

Starting Tuesday, he will be both the driver of the No. 6 Ford and owner at Roush Fenway, where he will have a prominent voice in shaping the organization's direction.

(Photo courtesy Team Penske via Twitter)

Kyle Larson held off Martin Truex Jr. during a frantic final 20 laps to cap a dominant NASCAR Cup Series season, winning his first Cup championship and becoming the first driver to 10 wins in a season since Jimmie Johnson in 2007.

Truex, the 2017 Cup Series champion, finished 0.398 seconds behind in second place.

Denny Hamlin, whose 46 wins without a championship are second only to Junior Johnson, finished third, followed by last year’s champion, Chase Elliott.

“I cannot believe it. I didn’t think I'd be racing a Cup car a year and a half ago," said Larson, who was fired from Chip Ganassi Racing and suspended by NASCAR in April 2020 after using a racial slur during an iRacing live stream. "To win a championship is crazy. … There were so many points in this race where I did not think that we were gonna win, and without my pit crew on that last stop we would not be standing right here. I’m just blessed to be a part of this group.”

“I had a lot of thoughts,” he said about his mind when he crossed the finish line. “A lot of thoughts through this last, really since right before intros, it all hit me and I had tears running down my face, just doing the truck ride-around. The crowd was cheering loud and it was just a different atmosphere than I’ve ever been a part of. I’m glad we were able to get it done.”

Elliott and Larson dominated Stage 2 — Hamlin’s first two pit stops were slow, but his No. 11 crew helped him gain three spots after Chase Briscoe brought out a caution on Lap 155. Through two stages, Elliott led 79 laps, Truex led 39, Larson led 34 and Hamlin hadn’t led any. The championship four started the final stage 1-2-3-4 (Kyle Larson, Elliott, Truex and Hamlin).

And then momentum changed. Truex had just pitted with 65 to go when Anthony Alfredo's right front tire blew and sent him at a nasty angle into the wall. Truex and Ryan Blaney were on pit road when the caution came out, so they cycled to the lead. Hamlin won the race off pit road over Elliott, Logano and Larson. Truex and Hamlin lined up on the front row for the restart.

The caution came out with 31 to go after debris fell from David Starr’s car and everyone came in to pit. Kyle Larson won the race off pit road, gaining three spots. He came out ahead of Hamlin, Truex and Elliott, and when the green flag flew, Larson jumped to a 0.291 second lead over Truex and took off.

Larson has produced career-bests in every single traditional statistical category this season – wins (10), top fives (19), top 10s (25), laps led (2,474), and average start (6.4, series best).

Larson was reinstated in October after meeting NASCAR’s required criteria for reinstatement, and Hendrick Motorsports hired him nine days later for 2021.

(Photo: Sean Gardner / Getty Images)

Martin Truex had come in to pit when Anthony Alfredo's right front tire blew and sent him at a nasty angle into the wall. A potential big break for the No. 19 team. He inherits the lead.

“Lost drive off at end of that run," Larson tells his team.

59 to go and a big change as Truex and Hamlin lead the field to green.

44.3 percent of respondents think Kyle Larson will be the championship winner.

26.2 percent opted for Chase Elliott, 15.4 percent for Martin Truex Jr. and 14 percent think Denny Hamlin will win his first championship.

Weigh in on our poll below.

Kyle Larson: Adjustments have worked and he's as fast as the 9 car.

Chase Elliott: Right there with Larson.

Denny Hamlin: Has nearly closed the gap to Larson and Elliott.

Martin Truex Jr: Pit road has been an adventure. He needs a long green flag at the end to have a chance.

1. Kyle Larson
2. Chase Elliott
3. Denny Hamlin
4. Martin Truex Jr.
5. Ryan Blaney
6. Kevin Harvick
7. Brad Keselowski
8. Kyle Busch
9. Joey Logano
10. William Byron

Hamlin just noticed Larson's damage: "Oh wow. 5's got a f***ing parachute on the right rear."

Lap leaders so far today:

Elliott — 79

Truex — 39

Larson — 34

Blaney — 33

(Mark Rebilas / USA Today)

Chase Briscoe appeared to have a left rear tire issue and hit the wall on Lap 155, ending the Stewart-Haas Racing driver's season early.

In his first year in Cup, Briscoe has three top-10s, a 19.2 average finish and had completed 98.1 percent of the laps run this season.

As Jeff Gluck writes, if you don’t know the Chase Briscoe story, it’s time. Pull up a seat. Let’s go through 10 times when Briscoe’s racing life could have taken a much different path.

“He definitely swears more than any crew chief I’ve ever had,” Truex, said laughing. “He’s definitely ahead of Cole (Pearn).”

Like many within NASCAR, James Small, 38, was born into a family entrenched in motorsports. Unlike most everyone within NASCAR, Small was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia.

For a deeper look at Small, one of the Championship 4 crew chiefs, read Jordan's story below.

(Photo of James Small and Martin Truex Jr.: Nigel Kinrade Photography courtesy Joe Gibbs Racing)

A hard impact by Quin Houff brings out the yellow. (He gets out of the car.)

Elliott wins the race off pit road. Truex loses three spots as the field pits. Denny Hamlin had a slow pit stop as well. He's down to P9 now.

Elliott led for 40 laps in that stint before Truex was able to pass him. So if that's the case going forward, any sort of late caution would seem to favor Elliott.

(Photo: Peter Casey / USA Today)

Championship contenders are 1-2-3-5.

Chase Elliott leads Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Larson and Denny Hamlin. Kevin Harvick's in fourth; he leads the series in wins at Phoenix with nine and also leads in Playoff race wins at Phoenix with four victories (2006, 2012, 2013 and 2014).

1. Martin Truex Jr. (P)
2. Kevin Harvick
3. Chase Elliott (P)
4. Denny Hamlin (P)
5. Kyle Larson (P)
6. William Byron
7. Cole Custer
8. Ryan BLaney
9. Kurt Busch
10. Matt DiBenedetto

No stage points for the championship contenders.

Stage 1 observations

Truex looks like the driver whose four wins in 2021 all came on 750-package tracks.

Hamlin is good on a long run, but needs track position.

Elliott is fast on a short run and doesn't have much falloff.

Crew chief Cliff Daniels goes for "big swings" with Larson's No. 5, including air pressure adjustments, NBC Sports reports. Chase Elliott wins the race off pit road.