Track: Homestead-Miami Speedway
Location: Homestead, Florida
Track length: 1.5 miles
When: 3 p.m. ET
Where to tune in: NBC, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Race purse: $13,855,063
Race distance: 267 laps | 400.5 miles
Stages: 80 | 165 | 267
Sunday's starting lineup | Pit stall assignments
A racer's track returns as championship host
HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Kyle Larson has a potential date with history in Sunday's season-ending showdown at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where he's 67 points clear of his nearest challenger in the NASCAR Cup Series championship clash. With Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin -- the only other mathematically eligible drivers -- seemingly resigned to fighting for second place in the standings, Larson has the opportunity to finish out a likely third Cup title with a flourish.
Larson enters Sunday's 400-miler as winner of two of the last four Homestead-Miami events, and his remarkable consistency through his three-win postseason has left the otherwise-stout competition well behind in the 10-race Chase. The driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet has put up strikingly solid numbers, ones that rank among the all-time best Chase performances. Jimmie Johnson's 5.0 Chase average finish on the way to the 2007 title and Tony Stewart's 6.3 finishing clip in 2011 come to mind, just ahead of Larson's current average of 6.78 through nine Chase races.
RELATED: Weekend schedule | At-track photos: Homestead
Larson says he and the team have had a loose, no-pressure attitude through the weekend, engaging in gripping debates about whether a hot dog is a sandwich among other pressing topics in their pre-race banter. Though there are statistical benchmarks still to contend for, Larson says he's solely focused on becoming just the 11th driver to win three or more titles in NASCAR's top division.
"I don't know who has the best average finish in the past. It doesn't really matter," Larson says. "It's just that they were or were not champion."
Larson sits on the cusp of another major career milestone Sunday at Homestead-Miami, which hosts championship weekend for the first time since 2019 after a six-year run of year-enders at Phoenix Raceway. The 1.5-mile oval has long been a drivers' favorite, providing a virtual neutral-court venue with multiple racing grooves to settle this season's points races.
It's been 20 months since the track has welcomed NASCAR back to its high banks, affording the facility's managers time to
spruce up the grounds for its return to the championship-host rotation. As drivers have become reacquainted with the intermediate layout this weekend, they've welcomed both the sense of nostalgia and the ultra-competitive style of racing.
"Before I was racing in NASCAR, the championship race was at Homestead, and I just remember always just being amazed at the product that it put on," says Chase Briscoe, who won the Busch Light Pole Award in Saturday's qualifying session. "
I feel like Phoenix was a great place, l
ike city-wise, but the type of racing at Phoenix, it doesn't come down to sometimes the whole package, right? Like, you can have varying pit-stop strategies with two tires or staying out, where this place, every single detail matters. Your short-run speed, your long-run speed, your driver has to be really good. Your pit crew has to be unbelievable, and it just has this unique thing that other race tracks don't have because it does take every single thing.
"T
here's no lucking your way into strategy here, so yeah, I just feel like this has always been an amazing track to host a championship race at, and hopefully can be for a long time."
MORE: Saturday qualifying recap | Title-clinching scenarios
The three championship contenders will all start in the first three rows of the full 40-car field -- Hamlin in second alongside JGR teammate Briscoe up front, with Larson fourth and Bell sixth. Only a Larson catastrophe and a heaping dose of help would elevate Bell or Hamlin (70 points back) into position for the Bill France Cup.
A handful of drivers have found trouble already in preliminary action here, with Tyler Reddick -- a 2024 Homestead winner -- careening into the back of Zane Smith's car on an overcooked pit-road entry and Brad Keselowski crashing during his qualifying lap in a fruitless search for grip.
Expect more of the same in a season finale that will transition from day to evening on a temperature-sensitive track, one that will demand the most from stock-car racing's best.
"T
his place is so fun as a driver, just because you can do so many different things and really manipulate your car," Briscoe says. "
And yeah, you just don't ever run two laps the same. I just, I've loved this place ever since the first time I came."
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Sean Gardner | Getty Images[/caption]
Leading the way at Homestead
As Larson sets the pace by a wide margin in the Cup Series standings, he also holds an advantage in the time he's spent out front at Homestead-Miami Speedway during the Next Gen era.
Six drivers have led more than 50 laps at the 1.5-mile track with the seventh-generation Cup Series car, and all six were qualifiers for The Chase presented by Mobil 1. Here's who have been the best pace-setters here since the Next Gen car debuted in 2022:
[table id=891 /]
Speed reads
Race-day essentials:
• Homestead hub: Weekend information, pit stalls, additional results
| Read more
• Sunday Setup: Crew chief Cliff Daniels has No. 5 team well-prepared
| Read more
• Paint Scheme Preview: Fine lines and designs for Homestead finale
| View gallery
• Neil Paine: Where Larson's challengers faltered in The Chase
| Read more
• NASCAR Classics: Explore the video library of Homestead full-race replays
| Watch now
• Power Rankings: One last top 16 with Chase finale up next
| This week's ranks