Kyle Larson delivered a haymaker on Sunday at Kansas Speedway as he swept the stages, earned the Xfinity Fastest Lap bonus and won the race to become the first driver to earn the maximum of 76 points under this points system. As a result, Larson boosted his lead from one point to 26 over Denny Hamlin, and every other driver lost points to the leader this week.
Here’s where we stand in The Chase presented by Mobil 1 coming out of the Hollywood Casino 400 and heading to Las Vegas Motor Speedway for Sunday’s South Point 400 (5:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
RELATED: Kansas results | Full Cup Series standings
Chase Changer
Christopher Bell summed up the feeling that might be settling in with The Chase field after witnessing Larson’s dominating performance, saying he thought he needed to win three races to even have a chance at taking home the championship. Considering there are only six races left in The Chase, that sounds like a pretty tall order, even for someone with Bell’s talent who ripped off three wins in a row early last season, or for Hamlin, who went on the same type of three-race heater earlier this year.
But to see why this winner-take-all attitude is starting to creep in with this current Chase field, you needn’t look any further than the shift in points that occurred after Larson passed Chase Briscoe with seven laps to go in Sunday’s race. Before that pass, Larson had only an eight-point lead on Hamlin in The Chase standings, while Bell and Joey Logano were 28 and 39 points behind, respectively. Ryan Blaney, at minus-73, and Ty Gibbs (minus-75) were the next two drivers in line.
A Briscoe win would have made the situation a lot tighter entering Las Vegas, but when Larson overtook the looser-handling No. 19 Toyota and went on to win the race, his cushion became much more comfortable (see Chase Board). Now, it seems like it’s going to take a Herculean effort to deny Larson from winning his third championship, and Bell, Hamlin and others all mentioned in their post-race interviews the importance of not only piling up lots of stage points but also of ultimately coming away with the win.
The Chase Board
The driver who is closest to Larson in the standings, Hamlin, still might have something to say. The Chase has not gotten off to the start Hamlin might have wanted, but a third-place finish and a 51-point day at Kansas would have been great on most weeks. But on this particular week, it meant Hamlin lost 25 points to Larson’s 76-point outburst. Still, Hamlin’s top-five finish was his eighth straight on a 1.5-mile track, and he also extended his record-setting streak of lead-lap finishes to 29.
With two more 1.5-mile tracks left in this portion of The Chase, there’s still time for Hamlin to regain his footing in the championship race. According to Racing Insights, Hamlin is still rated No. 1 in speed in its season averages. He also comes in third in passing and fourth on defense, but he’s only eighth in restarts and pit crew.
A look at these season-long averages also hammers home the point of how Briscoe, the driver of the No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota, really let a big fish get away from him at Kansas. That’s because his numbers have been comparable to the top drivers, ranking first in restarts and defense, second in pit crew, fourth in passing and seventh in speed.
At Kansas, Briscoe had a rough day by his standards: Although he was first in pit crew, with a record-breaking stop mixed in, he was seventh in speed and passing, 10th in defense and 17th on restarts. An ill-handling car in the late stages, perhaps brought on by the fact that he had to work so hard to track down Larson, likely had a lot to do with the defense number being down.
| Rank | Driver | Points Behind | Gain/Loss to Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kyle Larson | -- | Gained 25 |
| 2 | Denny Hamlin | -26 | Lost 25 |
| 3 | Christopher Bell | -50 | Lost 33 |
| 4 | Joey Logano | -67 | Lost 51 |
| 5 | Ryan Blaney | -91 | Lost 39 |
| 6 | Ty Gibbs | -94 | Lost 52 |
| 7 | Tyler Reddick | -111 | Lost 50 |
| 8 | Chase Briscoe | -123 | Lost 36 |
| 9 | Austin Cindric | -140 | Lost 24 |
| 10 | Bubba Wallace | -140 | Lost 48 |
| 11 | Carson Hocevar | -150 | Lost 65 |
| 12 | William Byron | -158 | Lost 37 |
| 13 | Chase Elliott | -161 | Lost 44 |
| 14 | Ryan Preece | -173 | Lost 49 |
| 15 | Chris Buescher | -186 | Lost 62 |
| 16 | Daniel Suárez | -187 | Lost 53 |
Source: Racing Insights
Next Up
Las Vegas Motor Speedway offers an opportunity for those who were strong at Kansas to continue their momentum, because it’s another 1.5-mile track. There’s also a good chance that we will see practice and qualifying in a Chase where the metric has set the lineup three times in the first four races because of weather washing out qualifying.
Therefore, some drivers who were hurt by the metric at Kansas — like Briscoe, who started 23rd, and Blaney, who started 25th after the Carson Hocevar wreck at Bristol — might not be buried toward the back of the field at Las Vegas and have to work so hard to move forward.
Looking back at the most recent winners at Las Vegas, Hamlin has claimed the last two checkered flags there. Before that, it was Josh Berry in the spring of 2025 and Joey Logano in the fall of 2024. Further back, it was Larson who won consecutive Vegas races in the fall of 2023 and spring of 2024. Needless to say, these are some of the key names in The Chase that likely will be running up toward the front come Sunday.
Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, Blaney, Bell and Briscoe and have not yet won at Las Vegas in their Cup Series careers. Bell does have five top-five finishes and 279 laps led there, and he finished second to Larson in the fall of 2023 and second to Logano in the fall of 2024. But as the man said earlier, that’s probably not good enough in this Chase.