At the start of The Chase presented by Mobil 1, Kyle Larson was a seventh seed carrying a 50-race winless drought and a 55-point deficit to top-ranked Denny Hamlin. Just nine races later, he's 70 points ahead of Hamlin, with only Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Homestead-Miami Speedway (3 p.m. ET, NBC, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) left to decide the 2026 title.
The math behind that reversal is rather staggering: Larson has outscored Hamlin, the regular-season's clear best driver, by 125 points during the postseason, transforming the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet from an inconsistent regular-season contender into the overwhelming championship favorite.
Larson enters with a 67-point advantage over Christopher Bell and a 70-point cushion over Bell's Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Hamlin, the only other drivers still mathematically eligible for the title. He needs just nine points to guarantee his third Cup championship and second straight, but the points margin alone doesn't fully capture the extraordinary work that put him in this position.
By several measures, Larson's current Chase stacks up with some of the strongest postseason performances since the format debuted in 2004 -- including his own two championship campaigns. Let's dig in with numbers courtesy of Racing Insights.
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From 55 down to 70 up
Larson's transformation is particularly striking considering where the two championship favorites stood before the postseason began. Hamlin entered The Chase as the No. 1 seed with four regular-season victories and an average of 39.5 points per race. Larson, meanwhile, had gone the entire 26-race regular season without a victory and averaged just 27.85 points per race -- a season-long struggle to consistently turn the No. 5 team's considerable speed into matching results.
That narrative, however, shifted almost immediately after the standings reset.
Through nine Chase races, Larson has amassed a series-best 424 points, averaging
47.1 per race -- roughly a 69% increase over his regular-season scoring pace. Bell is a distant second with 352, followed by Joey Logano (331) and Chase Briscoe (330). Hamlin, despite entering the postseason with the largest points cushion, ranks fifth with 299.
And the separation extends well beyond the points themselves -- Larson leads all Chase drivers with three victories, six top-five finishes, eight top 10s and 579 laps led. William Byron is next with 364 laps led, while no other Chase driver has managed more than six top 10s.
Interestingly, Larson hasn't dominated
every statistical category. Bell has collected more stage points -- 103 to Larson's 92 -- while Logano leads the field with five stage wins to Larson's four. Those distinctions help illustrate what has made the No. 5 so formidable: rather than relying exclusively on outright speed or stage domination, Larson has consistently assembled complete races, collecting valuable points even when the afternoon hasn't gone entirely to plan.
Above all else, that alone has felt like the determining factor of this Chase.
A remarkable run, even with one major setback
Larson laid the groundwork for his remarkable championship advantage in the opening five races of The Chase, finishing fifth, first, second, first and second. His astonishing 2.2 average finish over that stretch was the best five-race start since NASCAR introduced a postseason format in 2004, and a sixth-place result at Charlotte left him with a 2.83 average through six events -- the second-best six-race stretch in Cup postseason history.
That level of consistency made Larson appear increasingly difficult to catch. But as Phoenix Raceway demonstrated, even an extraordinary points run can unravel quickly.
Handling problems and a tire failure sent Larson to a 34th-place finish at Phoenix, where he collected a miserable three points and watched his once-comfortable 49-point championship lead shrink to just five, with arguably his worst track looming right after. What had been building toward a potentially decisive postseason suddenly looked like anybody's championship again.
Then, in one of the season's most improbable finishes, Larson produced perhaps his most consequential victory to date. Winless in his previous 58 drafting-track starts, he fell from the lead to 11th on the final lap before somehow finding a path through the tri-oval to snatch the victory and all but squash his competitors' hopes. The remarkable rally delivered 71 points and expanded his championship lead from five to 73 in one afternoon.
A ninth-place finish at Martinsville Speedway brought that advantage down slightly, but left Larson with a 6.78 average finish through nine Chase races. Beyond championship material right there.
That figure becomes even more impressive when considering the weight of his lone disastrous afternoon. Remove the 34th-place Phoenix result, and Larson has averaged a stunning 3.375 finish across his other eight Chase starts, with no result worse than ninth.
For historical perspective, the champions of the original Chase era from 2004-13 combined for a 6.98 average finish across their respective 10-race title runs. Larson's current 6.78 mark is slightly better, although the comparison comes with an important distinction that his final average won't be established until Homestead, and the postseason formats and points structures aren't identical.
Still, it provides a compelling measure of just how exceptional this stretch has been, and as the most recent Homestead winner, there's a legitimate chance he whittles it away further.
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Even his championship seasons weren't quite like this
Perhaps the most revealing historical comparison isn't with Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon or any other Chase-era legend, but with Larson himself.
Through the first nine postseason races of his dominant 2021 championship campaign, Larson had four victories, five top fives, seven top 10s and an 8.11 average finish. Four years later, during his 2025 title run, those figures stood at zero wins, three top fives, five top 10s and a 12.33 average.
This year's numbers -- three victories, six top fives, eight top 10s and a 6.78 average -- represent his most consistent opening nine postseason races of those three seasons, even if the win total doesn't quite match his 2021 pace (in The Chase or season at large -- he was a double-digit-winner that year).
The difference becomes more interesting, too, when considering how differently those two championships unfolded. In 2021, Larson overwhelmed the competition with 10 victories across the full season, punctuating a dominant first year with Hendrick Motorsports by winning the championship finale at Phoenix. His second title, however, was secured through a late strategic opportunity on pit road, when crew chief Cliff Daniels' two-tire call helped Larson capitalize on the final caution and claim the 2025 crown despite never leading a lap.
This year's Chase has seemingly required a combination of both approaches, showcasing the No. 5 team's capacity to dominate when the speed is there and recover when things go sideways.
At Kansas Speedway, Larson swept both stages, led 235 of 267 laps and scored the maximum 76 points in one of the most commanding performances of the season. At Las Vegas Motor Speedway, a lengthy pit stop put him a lap down before he and Daniels rallied to finish second. And at Talladega, he collected 16 stage points, survived the chaos and capitalized on an unlikely opportunity in the final few hundred yards.
It's all to say this hasn't been a flawless Chase for the No. 5 group, but one in which it has repeatedly converted adversity into a considerable points haul. Given the nature of NASCAR's restored 10-race championship format, that ability has proven nearly as valuable as the outright speed itself.
One race from another chapter
For Larson, there are certainly worse places to put the finishing touches on a championship than Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The 1.5-mile oval has produced two victories in his 12 career Cup starts, including the most recent race in March 2025, and his 645 laps led there are the most among active drivers. His recent intermediate-track record is similarly impressive, with finishes of seventh or better in 11 of his last 14 races on traditional 1.5-mile tracks.
The competition isn't lacking credentials, either, particularly Hamlin, who owns three Homestead victories and has averaged a series-best 4.63 finish on traditional 1.5-mile tracks this season. But Larson has built such a substantial championship advantage that even another extraordinary performance from one of his rivals might not be enough.
Should he finish the job Sunday, Larson would become NASCAR's first back-to-back Cup champion since Johnson completed his remarkable five-title streak in 2010, becoming the 11th driver with at least three Cup championships. He would also deliver Hendrick Motorsports its record 16th Cup title and become the third-youngest driver to win three championships, behind only Gordon and Johnson.
Those accomplishments would further cement Larson's place among the sport's greats, but the statistical story of this Chase is already compelling on its own.
From a hefty points deficit to an overwhelming advantage, Larson has transformed the championship picture through a combination of dominance, consistency and timely recoveries. The No. 5 team hasn't simply been extraordinary on its best afternoons; it's found a way to make nearly every afternoon count.
Whether that remarkable body of work ultimately earns Larson another championship remains to be seen, but whatever happens at Homestead, the numbers leave little doubt about just how special his 2026 Chase has been.
And it's been, like Larson himself, an all-timer.