Photo: FullmentalFic / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
Kyle Larson’s 2026 championship came down to a single, lopsided number: zero wins in the regular season, then three in the 10-race Chase. That split is today’s stat, and it explains how Hendrick Motorsports’ No. 5 Chevrolet became a third-time Cup champion on Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The stat: 0 wins in the regular season, 3 in the Chase
Larson entered the playoffs seventh in the standings and winless on the year, a drought that stretched to 51 races. According to NBC Sports, he ended it at Gateway in the second week of the Chase, then won at Kansas and Talladega. All three of his 2026 victories came in the final 10 of 36 races, and he finished the year with 1,238 laps led, per FloRacing.
What it reveals about the 2026 title fight
First, it shows how little the regular season mattered once the field was reset. Sixteen drivers get the same 10-race window, and Larson used it better than anyone, leading the contenders in average finish, laps led and wins. He turned a seventh-place entry into a 67-point lead going into the finale.
Second, it shows how much the playoff wins were worth. His margin of victory ended at 49 points over Christopher Bell and 56 over Denny Hamlin. A fourth-place run in Stage 1 at Homestead mathematically clinched the title before the race was half done, and a 12th-place finish was more than enough. We broke down that math before the finale in our look at Larson’s nine-point target at Homestead.
Third, the contrast with last season is sharp. In 2025 he won the title without a single playoff win, finishing third at Phoenix. In 2026 he won three times, including his first superspeedway victory at Talladega, a race that carried its own rules drama, covered in our yellow-line ruling explainer.
The Hendrick angle
The title is Hendrick’s 16th in Cup, and Larson becomes the third Hendrick driver with at least three championships, joining Jeff Gordon (four) and Jimmie Johnson (seven). He is also the 14th driver to win back-to-back titles and the first since Johnson’s five straight from 2006 to 2010. Heading into Martinsville, Hendrick needed him to win to clinch; he finished ninth and still carried the lead to Homestead.
The bottom line
Larson’s season is a reminder that a Cup championship is decided by who is fastest when the points reset, not who led the first 26 races. Want another numbers-first read? Last week’s Stat of the Day on Mercedes at Interlagos shows the same idea in Formula 1.
Featured image credit: Photo: FullmentalFic / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0. Additional images: tequilamike and Chad Sparkes via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0. Stats sourced from NBC Sports, FloRacing and Chevrolet/GM media reporting.
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